Fast Money (CNBC)

Infobox Television
show_name = Fast Money


caption =
genre = talk show, investment / trading
creator =
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presenter = Dylan Ratigan (host)
[http://www.cnbc.com/id/20596071/site/14081545/ Karen Finerman]
[http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838052/ Jeff Macke]
Pete Najarian
[http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838261/ Guy Adami]
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country = USA
language = English
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location = NASDAQ MarketSite, New York City
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runtime = 60 minutes
network = CNBC
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first_aired = June 21, 2006
last_aired = present
preceded_by =
followed_by = incumbent
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imdb_id = http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838499/site/14081545/
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"Fast Money" is an American financial investing television program hosted by Dylan Ratigan that began airing on the CNBC cable/satellite TV channel on 2006-06-21. Originally airing as a weekly (and later, a periodical) series, this program spun off from a weekly segment that first aired in the May 2006 episodes of "On the Money", which Ratigan previously hosted until 2007-01-08 (coincidentally the same night "Fast Money" re-debuted as a nightly series), when Melissa Francis took over the hosting duties for OTM.

"Fast Money" is broadcast every weeknight at 5pm ET on CNBC from the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City. Though the show was originally taped live, it was taped earlier in the day (similar to Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" program), until 2007-10-10. [ [http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnbc/programming_changes_at_cnbc_67915.asp#email mediabistro.com: TVNewser ] ] See "Programming and Ratings" section below for more.

After the success of "Mad Money", CNBC looked to replicate that success with another program with a similar format. The program was created by Susan Krakower, V.P. of Strategic Programming & Development, and producer Dan Hoffman, the same individuals responsible for the development of "Mad Money".Original music for "Fast Money" was composed and performed by Willie Wilcox of Willie Wilcox Music.

Program format

The program is "moderated" by Dylan Ratigan ("The Commissioner") and he is joined by 4 professional Wall Street traders: [http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838052/ Jeff Macke] , Pete Najarian, [http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838261/ Guy Adami] , and [http://www.cnbc.com/id/20596071/site/14081545/ Karen Finerman] . The group discusses various investment strategies and debate the merits of each other's arguments for or against a particular stock or sector. Tim Strazzini, an original panelist, was let go by the network on 2007-05-18 and replaced by Pete Najarian. [ [http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnbc/new_panelist_on_fast_money_59451.asp#email mediabistro.com: TVNewser ] ] Eric Bolling, who was also an original panelist, left the network in August 2007 for unknown reasons (he joined the Fox Business Network two months later), and was replaced on 2007-09-04 by Finerman. The program is known to tackle more complex financial items than other CNBC shows; such as options trading, commodities, ETFs, and technical analysis (which was usually done by Bolling and now by Carter Worth or Dan Fitzpatrick).

ubstitute hosts and panelists

When Ratigan is not available, substitute hosts are used in his place. Fill-ins include Melissa Francis ("The Empress"), Becky Quick ("The Contessa"), Erin Burnett ("The Heiress"), and Melissa Lee ("The Emissary"). Also, when a regular panelist is not available, substitute panelists are used in his place. Fill-ins include Pete's brother, Jon Najarian of OptionMONSTER.com, Tim Seymour, founder of Seygem Asset Management, Carter Worth, chief market technician at Oppenheimer & Co., Joe Terranova, Chief Alternatives Strategist at Phoenix Investment Partners, Quint Tatro, Tatro Capital and Zachary Karabell, President of River Twice Research.

Panelists

Current

*Guy Adami ("The Negotiator")
*Erin Burnett ("The Heiress"; 2007-present)+
*Karen Finerman ("The Chairwoman"; 2007-present)
*Zachary Karabell ("The Academic"; 2008-present)+
*Melissa Lee ("The Emissary"; 2008-present)+
*Jeff Macke ("The Lone Wolf")
*Jon Najarian ("The Monster"; 2007-present)+
*Pete Najarian ("The Pit Boss"; 2007-present)
*Becky Quick ("The Contessa"; 2007-present)
*Dylan Ratigan ("The Commissioner")
*Tim Seymour ("The Ambassador"; 2007-present)+
*Quint Tatro ("The Kentucky Kid"; 2008-present)+
*Joe Terranova ("The Liquidator"; 2008-present)+
*Carter Worth (2007-present)++ substitute host or panelist

Former

*Eric Bolling ("The Admiral"; 2006-2007), now a contributor for the Fox Business Network
*Stacey Briere-Gilbert ("The Hammer"; 2007)
*Tim Strazzini ("The Risk Doctor"; 2006-2007)

egments

The show has several distinct segments, including (but not limited to):

*Page Two: An in-depth discussion of some of the main business related stories of the day.
*Chart of the Day: This segment highlights a chart that corresponds to the day's specific stock.
*Trade Tomorrow: Ratigan and his panel zero in on the next day's/week's top three trades than can make you money.
*The Takedown: When one panelist disagrees with the other over a certain issue or comment.
*Trade School: If a member of the panel uses Wall Street jargon, Ratigan will decipher it for viewers (with an accompanying definition).
*Word On The Street: "Best money making chatter behind the scenes"; involves in depth discussion on the various stocks that have made recent news.
*Street Fight: CNBC contributor, Herb Greenberg, takes on the 4 panelists and challenges one of the stock picks each panelist has recommended, Ratigan picks a winner after each "fight" by siding with the views of the panelist or Herb Greenberg.
*Chartology: This segment looks at a chart that corresponds to a specific index, along with technical analysis, usually from "Fast Money" panelist Carter Worth.
*Breaking News: Late-breaking business headlines (seen on live broadcast only).
*Pops & Drops: Ratigan and his panelists review stocks that have the big gains (pops) and drops during the day (or week).
*Fast Fire: Panelists are held accountable for their past bad picks and are confronted on-air. This segment is seen on Fridays.
*Stocks on Sale: Panelists ask Ratigan whether or not a stock that is mentioned is on sale (very similar to the "Lightning Round" on "Mad Money"). This segment is no longer current.
*Sector Trade: A segment in which the traders pull the curtain on a hot stock, and tells viewers how to play it.
*Happy 52-Week High: Seen before and after the commercial break, this segment was about a stock that has just hit a new 52-week high on that day, along with a trivia question and facts about that particular stock. The answer to the question was revealed after the commercial break. This segment was discontinued in January 2008 and replaced by the "Trader Radar" (see below).
*Trader Radar: A successor to the "Happy 52-Week High" segment (and is similar to the one mentioned above), this segment is about a stock that "lit up Wall Street radar screens everywhere" on that day. The answer to the question is revealed after the commercial break.
*Take Your Position: The panelists give their specific thoughts related to an event, like a takeover or upcoming earnings.
*Face 2 Face: A viewer, via Webcam, asks a question about a specific stock to Ratigan and his panel.
*Grade the Trade: In this Friday segment (discontinued since October 2007), which involved college students who joined the show via Webcam, they had 30 seconds to answer a question asked by Ratigan. The panelists then graded his/her trade.
*Trade Update: One of the panelists will give an update to a previous trade they had recommended.
*Fast Money World: "Fast Money" panelist Tim Seymour reveals some international stock trades.
*Fast Message: Ratigan reads viewer Emails sent to mailto:[e-mail].
*Surprise Friday Guest: In this segment seen each Friday, a surprise guest joins the panel.
*Fast & Furious: A "Pardon the Interruption"-style rundown of events happening the next day.
*Final Trade: The final segment of the show in which Ratigan and his panel reveal what your first move should be the next morning.

The future of CNBC?

After the initial success of Jim Cramer's "Mad Money", network executives decided to look at expanding the concept across new programming. With the explosion of finance and finance related websites and competing financial television programming, CNBC has realized that it needs to diversify its programming offerings and move away from their standard "present the info" format. While this format has served CNBC well (and continues to do so during the "business day"), primetime has been a large black mark on the network's profile. Past prime-time ventures, including airing repeats of Conan O'Brien's late-night show, Dennis Miller and McEnroe's disastrous entry into the talk show world, have left the network without a coherent primetime schedule. It is hoped that this program, along with "Mad Money", will help the network move out of the ratings basement during the evening hours.

This program, along with "Mad Money", allows the network to try a new programming strategy: focus on the daytraders and professional traders, rather than the "buy and hold" viewers. One common thread between "Mad Money" and "Fast Money" is the "get rich quick" element to them -- the programs are trying to provide viewers with stock picks that will make them money within a short time frame.

Programming and ratings

"Fast Money's" first 13 episodes (including one live audience broadcast) aired during the summer of 2006 in the Wednesday 8pm ET timeslot. Ratings were relatively low, with the program averaging a bit over 110,000 viewers per week. During the week of 2006-09-18, the program tried a new timeslot at 5pm ET, the plush timeslot with highly rated "Closing Bell" serving as the lead-out (bumping "Kudlow & Company" to 8pm for the week). Here the show flourished, nearly doubling its viewership average to 211,000 viewers (on-par with what K&C normally gets). The 5pm ET timeslot, while successful, bumped "Kudlow & Company" to 8pm. This brought the show's ratings down substantially compared to where they were before the temporary move. After its successful 5pm test run during the week of 2006-09-18, CNBC retried the program again at 8pm the week after. CNBC had hoped it may have gained some traction after the increased viewership from the week prior. The show did not. Ratings were roughly on-par with the summer 2006 airings.

On 2007-01-03, CNBC announced that it had made a decision as to where to place this program on the daily schedule. The show re-debuted as a nightly television series as it returned in its original 8pm ET timeslot on 2007-01-08. On 2007-09-27, the network announced that the show would move to the 5pm ET timeslot on 2007-10-10 and revert to a live broadcast, with a re-airing at 8pm ET.

The 8pm ET rebroadcast of "Fast Money" has been discontinued as of 2008-07-07 and was temporarily replaced by the weeknight editions of "The Suze Orman Show". On 2008-08-04, "On the Money" relaunched with a new host (Carmen Wong Ulrich) and a completely different format in the same timeslot. Also on that same night, "Fast Money" began re-airing at midnight (12am) ET.

pecial editions

Dow drops 416

On 2007-02-27, a special edition of "Fast Money", which covered that day's 416-point plunge on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, aired. It was rebroadcast at 1am ET, pre-empting that night's scheduled airing of "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch".

Wall Street's Worst Week since September 2002

On 2007-03-02, another special edition of "Fast Money" aired. This time, it was a look back at Wall Street's worst week in nearly 4 1/2 years. Erin Burnett was the guest moderator of that episode (Dylan Ratigan was on assignment in Washington, DC when it aired).

Fast Money: Live from Silicon Valley

On 2007-10-19, "Fast Money" was broadcast live from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. [http://nbcumv.com/cnbc/release_detail.nbc/cnbc-20071017000000-cnbc039s034fa.html] This special edition also covered that day's 367-point plunge on the Dow, which coincidentally, occurred 20 years to the day it lost 508 points, or 22.6% of its value on Black Monday.

Fast Money 1st Anniversary

The "Fast Money 1st Anniversary" special was broadcast on 2008-01-15. This special edition showed memorable clips from its first year on the air from the NASDAQ (where "Fast Money" re-debuted on 2007-01-08), and also covered that day's 277-point plunge on the Dow. Michael Eisner, former Disney CEO and current host of his own CNBC show, "Conversations with Michael Eisner", made a special guest appearance on this program.

Fast Money: Miami Advice

On 2008-02-29, "Fast Money" was broadcast live from Coral Gables, FL (a suburb of Miami). This special edition also covered that day's 315-point plunge on the Dow. Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric (the parent company of CNBC) and retiring NBA star Alonzo Mourning made special guest appearances on this program, which was also the first "Fast Money" to be filmed outdoors.

Fast Money: Trading Chicago Hope

The third "Fast Money" road show was broadcast live from the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago on 2008-05-16. Making special guest appearances in this edition were CME Chairman Terry Duffy, personal finace guru Suze Orman (host of CNBC's "The Suze Orman Show") and Playboy Enterprises CEO Christie Hefner.

Fast Money Now

These special half-hour editions of "Fast Money" were aired at 1pm ET during the 2008 Summer Olympics over two weeks, from 2008-08-11 to 2008-08-22. Due to CNBC's Olympics coverage, "Fast Money Now" (1pm ET) and "Mad Money at the Half" (1:30pm ET) were shown in place of the second hour of "Power Lunch", while the hour-long editions of "Fast Money" (seen on a same-day tape delay) aired at 9pm ET.

Fast Money: Future of Wall Street

This special edition of "Fast Money", which was broadcast from New York on September 19, 2008 in front of a live audience, featured a guest appearance from activist investor Carl Icahn. This show was filmed in the famed Jazz at Lincoln Center-- Allen Room. This show also covered that day's 369-point gain on the Dow.

Fast Money MBA Challenge

Students from the top business schools across America competed in the "Fast Money MBA Challenge", which was also hosted by Dylan Ratigan. The shows were recorded at CNBC Global Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, NJ on 2007-07-14 and 2007-07-15. "Fast Money MBA Challenge" aired on 2007-08-01, 2007-08-08, 2007-08-15, and 2007-08-22, and were repeated on the following Sunday at 9PM and 12AM Eastern Time from 2007-08-05 through 2007-08-26.

Participating Schools:

* UCLA (Anderson School of Management)
* Columbia University (Columbia Business School)
* MIT (Sloan School of Management)
* Yale (Yale School of Management)
* New York University (Leonard N. Stern School of Business)
* Dartmouth College (Tuck School of Business)
* University of Texas at Austin (McCombs School of Business)
* University of Chicago (University of Chicago Graduate School of Business)

The championship final of the "Fast Money MBA Challenge" was broadcast live from outside the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York City on 2007-08-22. In that championship final, Yale faced Texas for the $200,000 prize. After six weeks, the $200,000 prize was won by Yale.

Worldwide Simulcast

Currently, "Fast Money" is not seen on CNBC Europe as that channel instead airs "Europe Tonight" on Monday through Thursday and "Europe This Week" on Fridays. However, as of 2007-10-10, this program is seen on CNBC Asia Tuesdays to Saturdays 5AM SIN/HK/TWN Time LIVE during the Daylight Saving Time period in the US until 2007-11-02. Without DST, CNBC Asia only broadcasts "LIVE" Friday (US time) edition of "Fast Money" on Saturdays morning at 6am SIN/HK/TWN time, and rerun version of Mondays to Wednesdays US time editions are aired from Tuesdays to Thursdays at 12pm SIN/HK/TWN time.

ee also

*"Fox Business Happy Hour" (a Fox Business Network program aired in the same timeslot)
*"Mad Money" (a CNBC financial investing program, hosted by Jim Cramer, which follows a similar format)
*"On the Money"

References

*cite news |first=Elizabeth |last=Jensen |title=The Brashness Is Back in Money Talk, and Also at CNBC |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/business/media/02cnbc.html?ex=1174190400&en=3506d7c02a8cbda0&ei=5070 |work=The New York Times |publisher=The New York Times Company |date=2006-10-02 |accessdate=2007-03-16
*cite press release |title=“Fast Money” To Join Primetime Lineup Monday, January 8th at 8pm |publisher=CNBC |date=2007-01-03 |url=http://www.cnbc.com/id/16453341/site/14081545/|accessdate=2007-03-16

External links

* [http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838499/site/14081545/ Fast Money - CNBC.com]
* [http://mbachallenge.cnbc.com/ Fast Money MBA Challenge]
* [http://fastwidget.cnbc.com/ Fast Money Widget]