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American Morning

Burger King to Trim Whopper Price

Aired December 02, 2002 - 09:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some people wait for the markets to open to get the latest from Wall Street. We don't. We don't have to.
We have Andy Serwer here, minding your own business.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Daryn. Good morning to you.

We had a great week last week for stocks. The Dow was up eighth week in a row, up over 80 points. Nasdaq up also strongly. And this morning, we are certain to have an upbeat open as well because the futures are way up. The Dow futures up 135 points. All the futures up over 15 percent. Strong retail sales over the weekend, as we talked about all morning, the reason there Wal-Mart is sure to moving to the upside, Also some tech stocks moving as well.

Plus United Airlines is also going to be moving because they're facing a Chapter 11 deadline, maybe filing for bankruptcy. But apparently, the machinists have agreed to a new term here, a new contract, so it looks like they may be avoiding that. We're going to talk more about that in the next half hour.

KAGAN: After the markets open.

SERWER: After the markets open, exactly.

KAGAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

SERWER: Yes.

KAGAN: Here's a whopper of a storyy.

SERWER: Yes, it turns out that Burger King, which we talked about on this program a couple of times recently because they're for sale, and Warren Buffett is not buying them, is cutting the price of the Whopper. This is amazing: They're cutting it from $2.19 -- that actually looks good to me right now. I don't know what's wrong.

KAGAN: I don't even like hamburgers and it is looking good.

SERWER: They're cutting the price of the Whopper from $2.19 to 99 cents. This is going to be in January. You talk about a company that is looking to sell some burgers, I guess that's one way to do it. Cut the price of it in half.

KAGAN: It says here on cnnmoney.com they're trying to sell the company and they're trying to cut the price because of Burger King's declining results.

SERWER: Yes, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) counterintuitive.

KAGAN: Yes. Help me with the economics here.

SERWER: They're trying to get more sales and figure they'll sell more burgers to get more sales overall to cut the price in half. It's called elasticity of demand. A little technical term.

KAGAN: Fascinating.

SERWER: But you cut the price you make more money, you think -- anyway, the price of a Burger King Whopper is going down from $2.19 to 99 cents next month.

KAGAN: Something to look forward to when the holidays are over. You can get that holiday blues.

(CROSSTALK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 2, 2002 - 09:23   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some people wait for the markets to open to get the latest from Wall Street. We don't. We don't have to.
We have Andy Serwer here, minding your own business.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Daryn. Good morning to you.

We had a great week last week for stocks. The Dow was up eighth week in a row, up over 80 points. Nasdaq up also strongly. And this morning, we are certain to have an upbeat open as well because the futures are way up. The Dow futures up 135 points. All the futures up over 15 percent. Strong retail sales over the weekend, as we talked about all morning, the reason there Wal-Mart is sure to moving to the upside, Also some tech stocks moving as well.

Plus United Airlines is also going to be moving because they're facing a Chapter 11 deadline, maybe filing for bankruptcy. But apparently, the machinists have agreed to a new term here, a new contract, so it looks like they may be avoiding that. We're going to talk more about that in the next half hour.

KAGAN: After the markets open.

SERWER: After the markets open, exactly.

KAGAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

SERWER: Yes.

KAGAN: Here's a whopper of a storyy.

SERWER: Yes, it turns out that Burger King, which we talked about on this program a couple of times recently because they're for sale, and Warren Buffett is not buying them, is cutting the price of the Whopper. This is amazing: They're cutting it from $2.19 -- that actually looks good to me right now. I don't know what's wrong.

KAGAN: I don't even like hamburgers and it is looking good.

SERWER: They're cutting the price of the Whopper from $2.19 to 99 cents. This is going to be in January. You talk about a company that is looking to sell some burgers, I guess that's one way to do it. Cut the price of it in half.

KAGAN: It says here on cnnmoney.com they're trying to sell the company and they're trying to cut the price because of Burger King's declining results.

SERWER: Yes, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) counterintuitive.

KAGAN: Yes. Help me with the economics here.

SERWER: They're trying to get more sales and figure they'll sell more burgers to get more sales overall to cut the price in half. It's called elasticity of demand. A little technical term.

KAGAN: Fascinating.

SERWER: But you cut the price you make more money, you think -- anyway, the price of a Burger King Whopper is going down from $2.19 to 99 cents next month.

KAGAN: Something to look forward to when the holidays are over. You can get that holiday blues.

(CROSSTALK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com