SOTS 2nd Hour: Union Pacific & Norfolk CEOs, AstraZeneca CEO, & Consumer Stock Picks 7/29/25

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Sara Eisen (1:02)

Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla and David Faber, live as always from Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks are kicking off the morning in the green. We're up about two tenths of a percent after a mixed finish yesterday after reaching another record high. We're at these record levels. NASDAQ leads up three tenths of a percent. Information is your best performing sector in the market right now. The chip stocks are on the move. NVIDIA, Broadcom, those usual suspects fueling the market. Utilities, real estate, financials, energy and consumer staples are the other winning sectors. Everybody else is under a little bit of pressure. As for Treasuries, seen some buying in the overnight action. Yep, that continues right now. We're about to get Joltz, the job openings date up. But the tenure yield 4.37, so lower yields across the board. Today it is a mega deal for the rails. We'll be joined in just a moment by the CEOs of both Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, fresh off of their news of their $72 billion tie up. Plus, a weight loss warning, Novo Nordisk is tanking this morning after the WeGoby maker cut guidance, replaced its CEO, much more on that straight ahead.

Carl Quintanilla (2:06)

Let's get some Joltz in Conference Board with Rick Santelli. Hey Rick.

Rick Santelli (2:10)

Good morning Carl, yes, job opening, labor turnover. Joltz, this is a June number, expecting the number around 7.5 million, comes in a bit light, 7,437,000.

That would be the lowest level of just since April of this year, when it was just a whisker under 7.4 million. What's notable here is last month, 7,769,000 moves up a bit, which not only continues to make it the best number of the year, but it's the best number going back to November last year in the rearview mirror. Now, let's look at Conference Board numbers. These are for July. 97.2 is the headline number. Sequentially higher than 95.2. That would be the best, well, just since May of this year. If we look at the present situation, 131.5, that is not sequentially higher than our last look, which was 133 after a slight revision. But nonetheless, it's still the best since May. And finally, what lies ahead are expectations. 74.4. It is sequentially higher than 69.9 in the rear view mirror, and that would comp to the highest level also since just May of this year. So we see that there's some rebounds in the confidence numbers. We did get some volatility on that Joltz number, especially considering it's coming off such a strong level. But all things considered, 437 before the number and a 10, 438 now. So we moved up and down a bit, but not changed very little from previous to the number release. And of course, we all know that this week we're going to get two job reports. We're going to get ADP and then the big government job report on Friday. So Joltz does have an outsized effect, but really nothing to be learned there. A lot lighter than our last look, but very close to expectations. David Faber, back to you.

David Faber (4:01)

Thank you, Rick Santelli. Well, let's get some more about the huge deal, of course, of the morning. Biggest in fact of all time, Union Pacific announcing in the rail industry, Union Pacific announcing it will buy Norfolk Southern. It's a cash and stock deal worth about $72 billion at present. It will create the first coast to coast freight operator in the country. And as I said, ranks as the number one deal the rail industry has seen in terms of its size. Joining us now in a First On CNBC interview is Union Pacific CEO Jim Venna and Norfolk Southern CEO Mark George to be interviewed by our Morgan Brennan.