Morning Show : Trump's Big Tax Win & Tesco Booker

Dec 20, 2017, 11:46 AM

Morning Show : Trumps Big Tax Win & Tesco Booker Tim Harrison, Head of Wealth Management at Linear Investments speak to Core Finance Presenter Matt Brown about the key market moving news of the day.

With the US Tax reform in the final stretch and expected to be completed this side of Christmas, the markets are trading flat as the final touches are added or amended to the bill. Harrison talks about the expectation that the bill will help improve corporate earnings and the expectation of a continued rise in the fortunes of US equity markets over 2018.

With the UK's Competition and Markets authority giving Tesco the green light for it's merger with wholesaler Booker, what does this mean for the end consumer and market share for competitors? With a tough year for UK retailers as a whole, could 2018 lead to more consolidation in the sector.

Broker Change: with a downgrade of Shire Pharmaceuticals by Liberum, Harrison notes consolidation in the Pharma sector and the potential of Shire being eyed up as bid target.

Finally with little in the way of macro data to move markets, Brown and Harrison look at the PNC Christmas Index related to the "twelve days of Christmas" song... guessing what of it's constituent members has the greatest cost value.