>> thank you, andrew. >> -- yesterday you gave me a little hard time for knowing about 13 ds and it was on the calendar. >> the 13 f. >> 13 fs, yes. on my outlook clrpd. now i think you're about to talk about some of those. >> that's right. >> george soros buying facebook f i'm correct. >> i doenl know. i don't know. there's four lines i see in the teleprompter. what comes after that -- >> is anybody's guess. nobody knows. >> i read all the scripts before the show to read them really professionally. a fluttered scheduled regul regulatory, and berkshire sold stake in intel in the second quarter and disclosed new holdings in phillips 66 and national oil well. berkshire raised stakes in vie acome, ibm and wells fargo and reduced positions in j&j, proctor and gamble, kraft, u.p.s. and ge. >> a lot of people getting out of kraft, by the way. >> they'll rule the day, he sold ge. gold getting its groove back with two big name investors. john paulson and george soros bought more of etf or gld in the second quarter. first time paulson has added to his gold position since losing in 2009. among other -- that wasn't in the script. he has -- that has been his -- not a good position for paulson. i mean, you know, future -- after that great year with -- during the financial crisis it's been tough a couple years. gold was not one. >> gold did not work. >> do you feel like we're in the dog days -- i feel like we're in the dog days of august. >> you think we hit that? did you see the market yesterday? >> you don't tell the viewers we're in the dog days of anything. >> the viewers that are still here are die hards. >> because of -- the rest are on vacation? >> they're in the persistent -- >> there's nothing. if there's -- there's no one in europe. actually, it's weird because people just move around in europe. there's no one in europe working. the people that live in portugal have gone somewhere else -- >> they have a lot of time to watch tv. >> they're watching ross westgate and kelly evans. >> we're broadcast there. >> we do. i like to think we do watch. >> when you were am paris and europe, accosted constantly. >> constantly. they thought i was gary busse, bud y holly. among other moves george soros sold stakes in jpmorgan, goldman sachs and citigroup and disclosed new moves in walmart. on the dow we're indicated down two point or on. you can't ignore, andrew, facts. it's august 15th and people vacation. aren't you leaving soon? >> i am. but, you know -- >> do you think you'll be recognized there? >> no. >> i hope the lions don't recognize you. >> they're not going to recognize me. >> how's your arm, where you got all the shots? >> yes. >> do not bring a warm that crawl up between your toes and entire body has an eight-foot tape worm. >> for viewers who have no idea -- >> do you know now? >> -- i'm going to africa. i needed shots and my arm was hurting because of the shots. >> that's what you said. it was your left arm. >> george soros investing in facebook. steve cohen also in face bok. quet the question is, when did they get into facebook? >> it's an attractive thing to buy something much cheaper but you still don't know -- it's a falling knife. you don't know where in the fall the knife is. groupon -- >> we didn't talk about it now, but david einhorn got out of r.i.m. now that's a stock that's gone up. i'm assuming he lost money on that but i don't think it was a big position. facebook could be on the move this week as first lockup on sales expire for early investors. 271 million shares become eligible for sale on thursday. so, tomorrow. part of the $1.9 billion that may be available over the next nine months. potential sellers include angel investors -- did you watch the doc last night? >> it was too late. >> elevation partners, microsoft and goldman sachs. the expectation, i should say, by the way, microsoft is not going to sell. they consider is a strategic interest. goldman sachs got in when there was a $50 impl valuation. they would have made a little money. the question is, if you hang o which way will it go? it's been a rough summer for facebook, down 37%. $20.16, coming out at $38. it went slightly higher than that and -- i don't even know what to make of all this anymore. >> did you -- you watched it at -- was it on at 9:00? did you ask them to turn it on in the french beast row where you we -- bistro? you go out have night, don't you? >> sometimes you can ask a maitre d' to bring over a little -- >> you had dinner out last night. >> can i tell you what i did last night? >> is it okay -- >> i hung out with the kids and -- >> you didn't go out to dinner. >> i did not. >> good. you will tonight, i'm sure. >> i will be home. tonight, i'm babysitting. >> i like hearing this. you have a job starting at 6 a.m. >> i think it starts a little earlier. >> sometimes it doesn't look like it. >> i'm not missing anything out there. >> let's talk about standard and chartered because it is the big headline. it's on the front pages. you know what this says, settles new york claims. this is a lot of money. >> it is. >> i like the journal's take on it, it's a shakedown. >> some argue it is a shakedown. this is -- that's one way to think about it. i think that might be right. standard and chartered shares are getting a big boost from the settlement announced yesterday. kelly evans standing by. people have called it a shakedown. others have said this is just the beginning. we'll be hearing a lot more and this investigation is not over. what's going on? >> i can tell the investor reaction has been largely positive to the news. shares up about 4%. we saw even a little stronger earlier this morning. still didn't 3.5% on the month, we have a ways to make it since the news broke. looking at the fine this morning and saying perhaps the bank isn't necessarily facing some of the worst case scenarios invesers and analysts were thinking. let's come over and take a look at various settlements weaver seen to date involving this wire-stripping, a way of removing phrases from the swiss payment system that might block. standard and charitied, $340 million, that's just new york regulators. what we've seen with other banks, this is about the seventh bank we've dealt with on this front. keep in mind, these cover all federal, local jurs dicks. let's start with abn amro, $500 million for that settlement. 2009 where we saw settlements with lloyds, credit suisse. we swing to barclays, 2010, $300 million. then 2012, the big one that got a lot of attention, ing bank, over $600 million was the amount reached with regulators. that's what a lot of people were starting to factor in. it's something when you think about what standard chartered might ultimately have to pay, that might give you a sense of the ballpark figure. hsbc, as a result of a senate investigation still ongoing. we have yet to get news on that front. $2.6 billion is what regulators have raised from all of these probes. nonetheless, industry insiders are running to standard chartered's defense. one saying the settlement is unfortunate but necessary aimed at presevening the firm's reputation. >> we saw unprecedented threat, unwarranted tlelt against new york offices of standard chartered. they needed to act quickly and achieve rapid resolution in order to avoid any lasting reputati reputation. >> at the same time we spoke with yimy gurule on the show and says he worries the fins aren't doing enough to stem the bhai. ftse still down about 0.4%. similar tone across the rest of the range. hang seng in hong kong kicked things off on a negative note, worst day since july. bond wall showing a bit of this flight to safety move this morning. italy down 6.7% italy down almost 6%. and better tone than we started off. forex because aussie/dollar was down, in line with china growth concerns. euro/dollar down 0.2% consistent with the mentality. we were down to -- yeah, now down further from the day's earlier low of 1.23 range. keep an eye on that one. standard chartered on a day with very little economic data otherwise is likely to remain the focus. >> kelly, thank you. andrew, did you read the whole piece here? people should read "the wall street journal" just to get an idea of what we're talking about here. it's pretty interesting. we're talking about the head regulator -- >> standard chartered? >> yes, on the op-ed page. the journal has favorite district attorneys, manhattan district attorneys and treasury looking into allegations but in this case, this guy jumped ahead of the queue and only told these other regulators, the same day, that he was going to to do it is when treasury found out. he called $250 billion transactions. it was $300 million. not $250 billion. now, the bank only it said did $14 million, so $300 million is a lot more than that. "the journal" is not claiming the bank didn't do anything wrong or its innocent but the last paragraph, hasn't been easy to convince the world to stop interacting with the iranian regime. it's not a platform to make american political careers. you've got this guy -- now we all know his name. >> i've told you what i think we should be doing, by the way. which is that if you are the a.g. or in his position or what have you, you should not be allowed to then run for any form of political office for four years. >> that's a good idea. >> if you think there's overreaching. if you have to -- >> that would save us a lot of trouble, in the past. >> people have made that argument with -- >> the new york post would not have helped. if spitzer, elliott -- that was a good one. the girls like the column for the post. you even ask -- what was her fake name? ashley dupree -- >> does she still write? >> i don't know. >> we talked about -- i think she does. >> "50 shades of grey". >> there was good tips in there, better than $50 shades of grey". >> you read that? >> no, i did not. but it's going to be a grit movie. >> i would be afraid i would hurt myself if i tried that stuff. >> everybody i know tells me that i -- that it's important that people read -- >> i'm afraid i would be involved in something -- you know who i don't want to end up like? kung fu. >> very true. >> let's open up the market -- >> let's not say anything else. kung fu scared you. >> a little bit. >> first awkward moment brought to you by joe kernen. >> i welcome that. lou breen -- we lost horshack, did you read that? >> we did. look at his face. lou breen, and bob brusca, chief economist. lou, am i overstating the dog days of august? does it feel doggy like? do you hear barking? >> yeah, sure does. you look at the volume on the stock market -- >> the other markets, yeah. >> there's -- and there's very little -- i mean, even though there has been a direction in the last few days has been completely directionless. foreign exchange markets, as you say, europe is generally on vacation now. i was auto way for a couple weeks. there was some movement in between but all for naught. >> retail sales yesterday, you like that number, didn't you? >> yeah, nice bounce back they revised to be a little weaker. you take the two months together and wash out some weakness. we're still declining over three months but 6 and 12 months the numbers look better. slowdown looks like a real slowdown but also looks like it's come to an end. i think seasonal factors exaggerated that. inventory cycle we ran. we had a little soft patch. >> aren't we -- >> exaggerated. >> people saying we're now 2, 2 1/2 environment for gdp. not 1 1/2, 2. maybe qe3 is not on the table now, which is -- is qe3 on or off? >> i don't believe in qe3. >> you don't believe it will ever be done? do you think it should be or it's not dwaish. >> both. i don't think this is sabre mr. bernanke likes to rattle. it's there, he can use it but i don't think he want to use it because he realizes it wasn't a potent weapon. >> the markets diplomat run up on -- they ran up on improvement globally? >> yeah, there's actual improvement out there. you know, at least in the united states. you still have lots of problems in europe. the papers today -- you read papers about europe and it's depressing. this has been coming on. this isn't anything new. this is the problem, is that this sort of wags we've been in for the last four, five months has been pretty much the same. u.s. economy has been weak, shows flashes of strength and showed a soft spot. europe continues to erode. they can't figure out what to do. it keeps getting weaker. it's like termites. they can't decide what to do so it gets weakened, weakened and they continue like it's not a problem. i think europe is a big problem and getting worse. >> bob, one of the keys with europe is that businesses have no comfort. you know, a multimillion euro investment in madrid today is not going to turn into a multimillion deal in madrid in the future. >> true. >> if they haven't had any comfort and haven't since last year, businesses are treating europe differently since then. banks are ring-fencing subsidiaries in periphery countries. businesses like shell are saying we're done with credit risk in europe. british air and iberia have a crisis meeting every two weeks to discuss ramifications of spain leaving the euro. if you don't have confidence, what the currency unit's going to be in your investment a few years ahead of time, you're not going to do business as you were. joe, in reference to your tie in yesterday, they can kick the can down the road all they want, hoping for the economic miracle to fall from the sky, but businesses, until they have some comfort as far as the membership of the euro in the years ahead, they're not going to do investment. they're going to ring-fence things as they have been, starting with greece once merkel last fall mentioned -- and others as well, mentioned the membership of the euro may not be contest. thag trying to make sure they have a way to stop the risk should one of these countries pull out of the euro. >> listening ing ting to ollie yesterday, all you can do -- you can't -- >> very few clean-ups. >> all you -- >> until they have a credible plan, joe, that the market -- the world believes they're heading toward fiscal union -- >> all right. >> then there's going to be some risk that some country is going to leave. you don't know the ram ficks, the domino effect. beyond that. therefore, how do you invest? you don't. the other day we had judge smells. we ran some tape and i thought about you because of lou grant and ted baxter and everything else. i don't know when to say to you except -- once again with the tie and the shirt and everything. >> it has all the currencies -- >> blue and white shirt. >> we have to bring currencies back and we have problems -- >> i mean -- >> it's summer. >> it's summer, all right. give the man a break. >> we have to run. coming up, we'll be getting a forecast from the weather channel as the middle of the country looks for much needed relief. you need to see that if you're traveling. the drought of 2012 may mean financial hardships but some stocks are feeling refreshed. we have some names. e announcer ] when this hotel added aflac to provide a better benefits package... oahhh! [ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ] [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. ♪ ha ha! ♪ crops crops crops ♪ crops crops crops >> i don't even know what to say. all day long cnbc and the networks of nbc universal are focusing on the drought of 2012. let's get a forecast now from the weather channel. can you say crops, crops, crops? >> i can. maybe not like that gentleman there -- ♪ crops crops crops >> i love it. here we are tracking the weather situation here. we are certainly finding our bit of rain. not necessarily where we need it to help out those crops crops, crops but finding heavy downpour across england. getting into boston we'll find heavy downpours. could impact some commute for you there. we'll be watching showers across north texas, in and around dallas. this heavy rain has been in place all morning long. now finally starting to shift south but it's already left us with some flash flood warnings in place all the way through portions of southern sections of arkansas. all thanks to this frontal boundary that will push offshore but bringing us rain across new england and sections of the mid-south. the attention will turn to the next system, driving in under the northern rockies and ain. the hope is that will bring in some drought relief to the middle of the country. those areas in red and orange, that's where it's extremely dry. we'll find rain coming in with the next system but the problem is, it's not going to be that soaking rain that we need over days. it's going to be a fast-moving front. wednesday, here's the position. thursday, moving through the midwest. quickly by friday, heading to the ohio valley and back into the deep south. we're already dry behind it for our friday. by the time we get into the weekend, it's already now at the coast. again, not going to get much help in the middle of the country in term of drought relief. what we will get is a cooldown. yeah, a lot of these areas have been baking, including places like bill lgz. yesterday's high, 97. 65 for your high today. that cool air will press on to the south and east. >> thanks, alex. cnbc and networks of nbc universal are taking an unpress deputied look at the drought of 2012 and we'll have a special half hour dedicated to the situation and impact of the nation's farmers and you coming up today at 1:30 p.m. eastern. the markets coming off flat tuesday. this will not affect tuesday? this is a flat tuesday. will this trend continue. at 7 a.m. best selling author will join us bringing friend like celtic fans and producers putting "50 shades of grey," the ones they're -- --. >> it's not going to be rated "r." i don't know how they could do that. >> can i have a look at yesterday's winners and losers. ♪ ♪ but i still haven't found what i'm looking for ♪ ♪ why not take a day to explore your own backyard? with two times the points on travel, you may find yourself asking why not, a lot. chase sapphire preferred. there's more to enjoy. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin. becky quick is off this week. if you didn't hear me say it that time, good morning, i'm joe kernen with andrew ross sorkin. becky ross is off this week. >> it was in the prompter twice? >> yes. >> that's okay. >> people to emphasize them, because people aren't really listening. the dog days of august. people are tired. it's early. futures this morning indicated a little lower after a flat session yesterday where we saw a gain of two points. major retailers are reportedly set to announce plans for a mobile payment network. "the wall street journal" has this piece. says the announcement could come together, involving walmart, target, 7-eleven and others. staples is reporting quarterly profit of 18 cents a share, below estimate by 4 cents. they blame softer than expected north american sales and weakness in europe. "new york times" has named mark thompson, outgoing head of the bbc to take over wall street journal. there was a time when they said you might. >> i took myself out of the running early on. >> i'm not kidding. don't make a joke. there was a time your name was bandied about because you're young -- you couldn't because you signed a contract here? >> she left like a golden parachute. he had wasn't in long, was she? >> karen robinson was there for over 20 years. >> but not as ceo. >> oh, no, she was the ceo practically for the last -- >> and then what happened? >> unclear, is probably -- >> not old. >> no, no, no. but i think it's --. >> what do you mean it's unclear? you worked there. do you have any scuttlebutt? can you tell me anything? >> it's one of the great mysteries