Fast Money (talk show)

Melissa Lee anchors a fast-paced discussion among four professional Wall Street traders. The group discusses various investment strategies, including technical analysis, and debate the merits of each other's arguments for or against a particular stock or sector. The show covers topics such as options trading, commodities, and exchange-traded funds.

Most episodes feature regularly appearing traders: Pete Najarian, Guy Adami, Karen Finerman, Tim Seymour, and Joe Terranova.

The success of Mad Money prompted CNBC to look to replicate that success with another show. Fast Money was created by Dylan Ratigan and Susan Krakower, Vice President of Strategic Programming and Development,[2][5] as a spin off from a weekly segment that first aired in the May 2006 episodes of On the Money. The show originally aired from CNBC headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, with Ratigan as host, and a regular panel of Jeff Macke, Guy Adami, Tim Strazzini, and Eric Bolling.[1] By January 8, 2007, it became a weekday show with its studio at the NASDAQ MarketSite.[5]

On Fridays, beginning with March 5, 2010, the show was truncated to just 30 minutes as Options Action (also hosted by Melissa Lee) was aired in the 5:30 ET timeslot. Both Fast Money and Options Action are broadcast from the NASDAQ MarketSite.

In mid-2011, Fast Money was removed from the Friday night line-up altogether to make room for Money in Motion: Currency Trading (also hosted by Melissa Lee) which airs in the 5:30 ET time slot, while Options Action was moved up a half-hour to 5pm ET. On March 22, 2013, it returned to the Friday night lineup. The program airs the first half hour (5pm ET) followed by half hour of Options Action at 5:30pm ET. Money in Motion was removed from the CNBC lineup[4]

On October 13, 2014, Fast Money, along with CNBC's other business-day programs, were launched in full 1080i high-definition as part of a network-wide switch to a full 16:9 presentation.

Strazzini was replaced by Najarian on May 18, 2007.[6] Bolling was replaced by Finerman on September 4, 2007. Seymour, who had appeared on the show as a substitute panelist, was made a regular in October 2008. After published rumors of conflict with Fast Money co-creator Susan Krakower,[2] Ratigan left the network on March 27, 2009 when his CNBC contract expired.[7] Ratigan was replaced by Lee, who sometimes filled in for Ratigan. Macke left CNBC on June 15, 2009[8]

Substitute hosts include Scott Wapner (host of the Fast Money Halftime Report), Becky Quick, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Brian Sullivan, Tyler Mathisen, and Joe Kernan . Also, when a regular panelist is not available, substitute panelists are used in his or her place. Fill-ins include Pete's brother, Jon Najarian of optionMONSTER.com; Carter Braxton Worth of Cornerstone Macro; Joe Terranova, Chief Market Strategist at Virtus Investment Partners; Zachary Karabell, President of River Twice Research; Joe Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at thinkorswim; Jared A. Levy, senior derivatives specialist at PEAK6 Investments; and Brian Kelly.

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: Lee and her 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, Lee 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 (and now Melissa Lee) 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: Lee and her 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 asked Ratigan (the original host) 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 Lee and her 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: Lee reads viewer Emails
• 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. The idea for the segment was pitched by former CNBC intern Jason Parks in May 2008.
• Final Trade: The final segment of the show in which Lee and her panel reveal what your first move should be the next morning.

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.

Fast Money is recorded at the Times Square New York, New York, street-level studios of the NASDAQ by CNBC, a national cable television network owned by NBC Universal/Comcast.

The show is recorded weekdays for air at 5 p.m. (ET). As the show is being ingested digitally in the Thomson Grass Valley MAN, the show is assembled by the editor and producer to be made into the first-run air product viewers watch Monday through Thursday at 5 p.m. (ET).

As of January 2009, among the many contributors are producer Jason Farkas, and tape producers Heather Wilcox and Boaz Halaban, responsible for creating and delivering the final show to air, after creating special Avid Adrenaline edited elements by CNBC Staff Avid Editors such as Conrad deVroeg, Gary Princz, Diana Constantino, and Dave Lettieri, and constructing the show with CNBC Staff Grass Valley NewsEdit Editors Rich Uliasz, Cosimo Camporeale, Carolyn Shivey, Vanessa DiPietro, Keri Conjura, Diana Acosta, and Kelly Frisco.

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 Business School
• MIT Sloan School of Management
• Yale School of Management
• New York University Stern School of Business
• Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College
• McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin
• The University of Chicago Booth 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.

Fast Money Halftime Report is an American financial stock trading talk show that airs from noon-1 ET on CNBC. This show, which follows the same format as the 5pm show, debuted July 7, 2010. It spun off from a segment on Power Lunch, which itself moved to 1 ET from noon ET on July 7, 2010. Unlike Fast Money, this halftime market show is hosted by Scott Wapner, and is broadcast live from CNBC Global Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Originally aired as a half-hour show, the Fast Money Halftime Report doubled its runtime from 30 minutes to 60 minutes on October 17, 2011 and also moved up to the noon ET timeslot. The newly expanded hour-long show replaced The Strategy Session, which was cancelled October 14, 2011 as a result of very low ratings.

• Mad Money (a CNBC financial investing program, hosted by Jim Cramer, which follows a similar format)
• On the Money (2005)

• Official website