Good morning. The days top stories, the battle of the bull as is s p comes off its first weekly loss of the year. On the global front, european markets are trading nervously amid election uncertainty in italy. And in hollywood, argo stormed to a best picture victory at the oscar hes. Its monday, february 25th, 2013 and squawk box begins right now. I thank everyone on the movie, worked on the movie, did anything on this movie gets thanked. I want to thank canada, our friends in iran living in terrible circumstances right now. I want to thank my wife who i dont normally associate with iran, but i want to thank you. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to squawk box here on cnbc. Im becky quick along with joe kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Were watching the u. S. Equity futures at this hour and right now it looks like there are some green arrows. You can see dow futures up by about 50 points in fair value. S p up by just about 7. Joe mentioned the oscars. He was very excited about this. If you went to bed early, here is a recap of the major winners. Argos win as best picture marks the First Time Since driving miss daisy that a film won top prize without its director being nominated. Ang lee was best director for life of pi. Three other wins for life of pi came for original score, sen ma effects and cinematography. Daniel daylewis took home best actor for his role as lincoln. The best actress went to Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings playbook. And best supporting actress was ann hathaway for les miserables. Randall stephenson will be joining us live in about ten minutes. The big news on his company today, gm is switching to at t from verizon for onstar wireless service. Thats beginning with the cars they make in 2015. Plus, we have a busy week ahead for retailers in earnings central. After fridays report from walmart, we will hear from a number of names in the coming days. Home improvement chain lowes is just out of the gate. You can see the premarket trade there down by 1. 3 . The other big story this week is the sequester. Budget cuts set to kick in on friday, march 1st unless Congress Takes action. We will talk to president obamas right hand xhan on the economy been Gene Sperling. And we will talk about what action or inaction means in Corporate America and the markets. Among our guests today, Larry Bossidy. He will be our guest host today. Evercores founding partner, roger altman. In the headlines this morning, Royalty Pharma is making an 11 a share bid to acquire elon. It hasnt received a formal response, but acknowledges it has been unsuccessful so far in its efforts to engage with the drugmaker since making that offer. Shares rising this morning. Take a look. Also today, voluntarily recalls all lots of anemia treatment in the u. S. By Royalty Pharma. The drug is used to treat anemia. Shares of affy defendants exhibit madz down sharply in early trading this morning. And Hewlett Packard announcing its making a tablet that uses googles operating system. The hp7 will be in a similar size to the amazon fire. Hp had a failed attempt back in 2011 with a device based on palms web os software when it bought that for a nice sum actually, it paid way too much. There it is. Joe. I dont know what amantis is. But anemia is dialysis patients, i dont know how this competes, but i want to mention lowes, which is reporting results this morning. Lowes reported 26 cents a share at 3 cents above estimates. Samestore sales were up 1. 9 . Stock is trading higher. Fourth quarter revenue is also above 11 billion versus 10. 84 billion. And i think the stock is lower. Now it is, yeah. Its not i cant tell which it is. It was 38 bid after a 37. 67 close. Yeah, now it looks like its down 52 cents. Thats just happening. Well see. But everything looks okay. Earnings of 2. 05 are expected for the year. That might be below. 2. 09 is what people are looking for. And then the samestore sales number looks okay, too. I think it was 3. 5 . The thing i can tell but lowes is that Jimmie Johnsons car was a lowes car. It says lowes everywhere. If you look at usa today this is lowes. Danica patrick was in third place right until the very end. Here it is. So jimmy johnsan was i can talk about the daytona 5 hup. I can talk about Michigan State ohio state. And i can talk about date line which came on. Its an nbc product. It came on at 8 00. And the guy definitely, in my view, killed his wife in the jacuzzi. Theres no way that the that the injuries that she suffered were from an accidental fall. And that includes your broad viewing for the week . That was my broad viewing. I mean, andrew, even women that are, like, embarrassed enough to admit that they watched it say that they only watch it to see the dresses and the makeup and the hair. They dont even pretend that they watched i watched. I know you did. I also can talk about daytona, but i did watch what can you talk about daytona . You know its in florida . Thats not nice. If i had been awake, it would have been it would have been walking dead. I watched a brief bit of it because the girls wanted to shes making an schoous excuse even. The one part i did see was ann hathaway which is an Nbc Universal film. She thanked ron. She did. They thanked ron meyer in her speech. He even knows she had a great speech. Daniel daylewis had a great speech. One question, by the way, total box office how late were you up . I watched some of it this morning. Total box office receipts, less than 10 billion. Hewlett packard reported 28 billion. The quarterly influence of hollywood, can you explain it to me . It cant all be dollars and cents, joe. Everyone can relate to it. Actors were one step below the groundling in sphake spears they performed for the aristocrats and royal families. How is it that you can do im not degrading it. Im just trying to and then make references to movies throughout the show every single day as if pop culture and movies are from 30 years ago . Godfather, caddie shack, unforgiven and g2. Thats all. Even becky makes mac, how much of the oscars did you see . There was a joke thats worth retelling. Did you see . Come on now, you watched it the zlp zero. Did you . Not one . And who laughed when anybody . Did you see . A minute of the oscars . Come on. Until 10 00. Weve got people here. Weve got people watching. You didnt see any of the big awards. 10 30, you you skr a choice between the walking dead and the oscars and you watched the oscars . Yes. And you missed michelle obama, right . Youre taping walking dead. I heard. Great. Michelle obama gave the award by video. Okay. Best joke of the night in my mind, seth mcfarland, where does rihanna go with chris brown . What was the date night movie . This is is it about Domestic Violence . Jango unchained. But it had people on the floor, i must say. My retelling was not i liked chris kardashian. Chris brown, rihanna, theyve had problems, but the movie yeah, but why violent. Well, that is a Domestic Abuse joke that i dont find funny. Well, let me i like the kardashian one he told better. That was good. I watched this guy kill his wife in a jacuzzi on dateline and im up to speed on that story. Thats the only one. Okay. If you want to trash absennbcs offering, thats fine. Not at all. And that guy, he looks like a you know the guy im talking about, the correspondent . I love him. In economic news, a new survey shows keith something, keith ill look it up. Shows chinas Manufacturing Activity has declined to a fourmonth low in february. Export orders decreased and output grew at a slower rate. Forecasters say its a reminder to chinas shaky economic recovery. In the u. S. , polled economists say likely government budget cuts and the prospect for messty political fights over fiscal policy is going to slice into gdp, a survey by the National Association of business economics finds more than half of those polled believe fiscal uncertainty will project and nearly onethird beginning to retract from half a point to a full point. And the average price of gasoline rose 20 cents in the last two weeks to 3. 79 a gallon and thats just for regular prices. Theyre now up 54 cents in the last nine weeks. But widely followed industry analyst lundberg says the twomonth upward trend in pump prices may be about to end. No kidding. And you wonder how does she know . Because she does seem to know. But Oil Prices Fell to like 93 bucks. But sometimes that doesnt matter because of gas prices and you know why. Because of the summer driving season and because of the crack spread. Your favorite. Muler, muler, muler. I saw that this weekend. 20 years old, right . They dont make them like they used to. I used to walk to school 20 miles each way up hill. Uphill was different. These movies stink. Theyre awful. Theyre terrible. You sound like my grandfather. Unwhat i liked . Zero 30. They they couldnt give it an award because of waterboarding. One of the others got it for sound. Lets talk about other corporate news. A federal judge in new orleans is going to begin hearing Opening Statements in the bp oil drill case today. A judge will decide how much money is owed by bp and its project. Gulf coast states are considering offering bp a deal under which i would pay 16 billion to settle civil suits stemming from the deepwater horizon explosion and the oil spill. In china, meantime, kfc is unveiling new Quality Control measures. The campaign follows a scandal of misuse antibiotic use by suppliers to fatten poultry. Also, the new ceo of media group pierce i dont know says the financial sometimes knot for sale. These comments came after repeated media speculation about the newspapers future at the company. Im not saying its for sale. First of all, everything is for sale. Thats right. But i think it ultimately trades. Next two years youre calling . Im saying next two years and i want to say its trades to our competitor starts with a b. Oh, okay. Bloomberg. Thats my buyer. Well keep an eye on it. Last week, the s p closed down by zero. That was the first week in seven that the s p has closed lower. The dow barely eked out a gain. And when i say barely, it was a gain of 0. 1 . It ended above right on that 14,000 mark, which is a key psychological level. Nasdaq was down about 1 . Dow futures up by about 50 points. Take a look at whats been happening in europe. Thats following the trade in asia been and this morning in europe, france is up by about 1. 3 . In germany, the dax is up by over 2 . In asia overnight, you can see that there were some green arrows. The nikkei was up by 2. 4 . Modest gains in shanghai and in hang seng. Oil prices as weve been talking about have been coming back down. This morning, theyre up by 81 cents, but still below 94. If that is the case, if that continues, perhaps it will lend some much needed help at the pump where prices continue to climb. The tenyear note is rating right now at a yield of 1. 969 . The dollar this morning, after seeing some gains last week, its down against the euro this morning at 1. 3271. It is up against the yen once again. 93. 76. And there is a lot of speculation about who is going to be the next bank of japan head. The leading candidate at this point is a man who is seen to be a big dove, someone who really puts some extra lending so that perhaps the yen would continue to rise pep talked or would continue to drop. He talked about how the yen has been at too high levels in the past. Right . He is going to be the guy if he makes his way through both houses of parliament. A bay does not have a majority, so there is a shot he gets knocked down, but yeah, the nominee, at least. Well see if he makes it all the way through. I liked abe. You liked abe. I liked abe. Abe . Abe. Theres a local ad, i admit well, maybe its not local, but for a car and they have abe and George Washington singing about president s day. I want to four score a deal and its sort of like abe singing and he goes for the red, white and bluetooth. It was so good that theyre still running them. Wasnt president s day i saw it last night. But a guy dressed up like lincoln. Now, i saw lincoln and i liked it. Im okay with that one. Weve got to go across to the pond. See if Ross Westgate time for the Global Markets. He was big on bond last night. Keep talking. They have yeah, they had all those it was 50 years so they had a lot. They had halle berry. And even i didnt see them all, but they did a big ross was not there, though. No, but i bet he looked it because of that. Skyfall won with zero dark 30. They shared that award together. For skyfall so congratulations to ross. Ill take that on behalf of the british Film Industry and music industry, well accept it. Amazing first oscars for a bond movie and it was a good one, as well. Here we go with just three hours and sa minutes into the trading day in europe. Were weighted to the upside and you saw that from beckys report. 7 to 2, advancers outpacing decliners at the moment. Plenty of focus on uk assets. We joined you in britain. We lost our aaa rating, moodys downgrading and a stable outlook mainly because of growth. That came out after markets are closed here on friday. There was a little bit of reaction in new york trade with sterling. Whats worth pointing out here is not much follow through to today. Initially in asian trade we pushed the pound down to a 31month low against the greenback of 1. 5073. The ftse here up 0. 5 . It is lagging the rest, but it has eked out seven weeks of gains in the first eight weeks of the year, as well. Lets show you where we stand then with sterling. As i say, we hit 1. 5073. At the moment, 1. 5154. Here is the thing. Since the beginning of the year, it has been declining anyway. Already down around 7 since the start of the year. And we saw a big fall down last wednesday when we saw minutes from the bank of england suggesting three members were looking for adding to qe. So that has already piled the pressure on the pound and gilt yields had been moving substantially, as well, before the moodys announcement. Take a look at gilt yields at the moment. But we had been up at 2. 21 last week, as well. So and then we pulled back both those qe minutes. So the actual net impact for moodys downgrade as weve seen elt where, fairly muted at the moment. Some moves weve seen have maybe already happened before the moodys downgrade. So threeyear gilt are higher today, 2. 29 . One issue, of course, is weather the quest for growth means we get more action from the bank of england, as well. The other big event going on in europe today is the italian election. Its the second day of polling right now. And those polls close 3 00 Central European time. There will be some extra programming on cnbc world. Well take a snapshot view of those polls, not quite clear whether anybody will get overall control of the senate. Italian assets, 3. 39 . They had a small auction index link. Didnt raise quite the maximum they targeted, just over 4 billion. Big tests coming up on wednesday for italy. Were going to get a fresh tenyear. That will be the first test post the election. Keep your eyes on that. And the currency market has been weaker. Maybe getting the nod for bank of japan governor is mr. Kuroda. Thats where we stand here in europe ahead of your trading day. Back to you guys. For a while, you were aaa and we werent, ross . Is that yeah. Does that seem logical to you . Was this a big surprise that this was coming at this point . No, it wasnt a big people have been talking about it. I think what was a surprise is the timing, joe. Weve got a budgets in a couple of weeks. Most people thought that moodys would wait to see what the outcome of that budget was and then oscar weekend. I mean, the timing is suspect. All right. Oscar weekend, right . Because they have great actors. If you have an accent, you will win there were a lot of brits at the oscars last night who were winning. If you have an accent, you will win the award for acting because it sounds so good. Why do you think i call them the vigilantes . By the way, theres news out from barnes noble this morning. Len riggio, the largest shareholder in that company is apparently going ahead and saying that he would be interested, andrew, i think in splitting up the chain. Splitting up the chain and buying out the the retail chains from the nook business. And he would like to buy the book part of the business. The stores part of the business. The stores part of the business. Which is interesting because the creation of all that is where they were going to spend so much money. They thought thats how they would compete against amazon. The latest things ive read show nook did not see the tablet gains that so many of the other companies did. That is a huge drop for that company at this point. There was speculation that riggio would be interested in doing this and apparently its now been confirmed through an s. E. C. Filing. The stock looks like its up 3. 5 on that. 1399 is the last trade and well continue to keep an eye on that. Right now, to our newsmaker of the hour. At t ceo rand i cant tellal stephenson. Weve heard the big news that onstar is going to be going with at t in the future instead of verizon. Were hoping you can tell us a little bit about that deal. What happened . Its interesting. General motors has probably been the most aggressive in terms of thinking about the connected car and where the connected car goes. And when you begin to contemplate an environment where you have these big, mobile Broadband Networks deployed ubiquitously, like around the United States, gm is asking how does that affect how you consider the experience within the car . How do you think about diagnosing troubles within the car . How do you think about traffic and monitoring traffic. Gm has done some aggressive thinking and announced theyre going to move to the car in 2014 to make that a reality within the General Motors product line. And we see those will be 2015 modeles and beyond. It starts in 2014. Already onstar has around 20 million customers around the world. What does this mean for customers that you intend to bring into at t . Well, we havent given any numbers in terms of what to anticipate as it relates to new customers the. But just to begin to contemplate the number of automo