Share Radio Breakfast

Investors have had to be smart to steer their way through the markets this year. There have been some great opportunities for returns but of course people can and have lost all their gains and more through poor calls and bad timing. It can be a lot more fun and you can certainly learn a lot about running a portfolio if you are part of an investment club. Dary McGovern, a member of the Sensatus Investment Club and Managing Director of Timetotrade, a company that produces investment software joined Share Radio to discuss.

Pharmaceutical companies are in the news again being accused of unreasonable price hikes. This time it's Actavis UK, who have been accused by the NHS of overcharging for a "lifesaving" drug by raising the price more than 12 thousand percent. This follows similar situations such as Pfizer being charged a record 107 million dollar fine for allegedly overcharging for an epilepsy treatment, and the Martin Shkreli scandal, when the U.S. Pharmaceutical Executive bought the rights to Daraprim, and raised the price more than 50-fold. Share Radio's Matt Cox has been investigating these price hikes. He spoke to Dr Amit Roy pharmaceutical analyst and founder of independent investment research firm Foveal.

With declining sales and some well publicised product disasters, 2016 was a difficult year for smartphone manufacturers. But analysts are predicting 2017 could be even tougher even as one old name, Nokia, prepares to enter the market once again. Share Radio's Robert Van Egghen reports.

Helen Thomas, Managing Director of BlondeMoney, joined Share Radio Breakfast to offer her regular market round-up. This week, Helen discussed the Fed after the decision to raise interest rates. This before a Trump presidency, so how will the Fed operate once The Donald is in power? And do we need to get used to higher interest rates from here onwards?

Ryan Heath, Senior EU Correspondent and Associate Editor at POLITICO Europe, joined Share Radio Breakfast to talk politics. The Daily Telegraph leads with news the UK could face a bill of £50 billion to leave the EU. Meanwhile the Financial Times says Brussels is preparing rule changes which would deprive London of one of its flagship financial businesses.

The latest retail sales data for November is in and, as widely expected, Black Friday and other retail sales days boosted the numbers. The figures are nearly 6% higher than the same period last year. But do the figures tell the whole story of what’s going on in retail, especially in light of Brexit, and with sterling in flux? Matt Cox found out more from Mintel’s Retail analyst, Richard Perks.

John Hardy, Head of FX Strategy at Saxo Bank, joined Share Radio Breakfast to discuss the latest news on the forex market. The dollar has surged after the Federal Reserve’s meeting on Wednesday Will this strength continue, and will it reach parity with the euro?

A study of how small and medium sized businesses are feeling about the future suggests revenue and hiring will accelerate in the next 12 months. That’s been revealed in an SME Growth tracker by Capital Economics. Zamir Cajee, an Amazon Marketplace user and online retailer, was involved in the survey and he joined to discuss the findings.

There has been remarkable growth in property rental prices around the proposed new stations for HS2 and Crossrail 2. Otherwise, national rental growth has slowed. This has been revealed in Landbay's monthly Rental Index, which provides analysis of national rental growth. For more on this, the CEO and Co-Founder of Landbay, John Goodall, joined Share Radio Breakfast.

High profile executives, including Microsoft's Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, are investing one billion dollars in a fund for clean energy tech and addressing climate change. They're being joined by others such as Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Alibaba chairman Jack Ma. They hope to increase financing to emerging energy research, and help hit emissions goals set in the Paris Summit. Dr. Charles Donovan is Director of Imperial College London's Centre for Climate Finance, and he joined Share Radio Breakfast to discuss.