Tax reform and infrastructure plans coming to focus blake bur man has the latest from the white house for us. The president also accusing china of being caught red handed helping north korea claiming there will never be a peaceful solution to the north Korean Nuclear threat if china keeps acting the way it is. Cliff may is coming up with the analysis on the latest threat. The dow headed for its 71st record close of 2017 with one more session remaining. Dow 25,000 and it could happen maybe not today but certainly tomorrow. We are less than one hour to the closing bell on wall street. I am Lauren Lauren simonetti in for liz claman. Were at the countdown. Breaking news, softbank has successfully bought a large sake in uber the wall street journal is reporting this deal values the Ride Hailing Company at 48 billion which is about a 30 discount to its most recent valuation which was almost 70 billion. Meanwhile on wall street the dow racing to another record close again, this would be the 71st record close of the year and while its been a blockbuster year for the dow, not such a wonderful time for toy sales. All right, barbie, hot wheels maker mattel one of the worst performers on the s p 500 as i speak, ubs putting out a report predicting that the toy industry was down 810 in peak times in the three weeks leading up to christmas. Mattel shares are down 1. 1 . Lets flip that chart to netflix currently the best performer on the nasdac and sitting on top of the s p 500 as well shares 193. 31 for a gain of almost 4 and by the way, if you need something to do because youre off and youre watching tv, netflix just teased on twitter the upcoming movies in january. Youre going to see blockbusters like pirates of the caribbean, troy, king kong, and wedding crashers among others, so well say happy binging everybody. I dont know, none of those are really wetting my appetite so lets move on to the weather. It is dangerous and down right deadly. This arctic air and snow blasting the nation from the midwest all the way here to the northeast. Businesses and workers disrupted from their usual routines as people hunkered and tried to ride out this bitter cold were talking temperatures in the low teens with wind chills below zero that could create Deadly Health hazards for anyone whose working outside or traveling far rick richmuth is in the Fox Weather Center and he is the fox news chief meteorologist. Rick, super low temperatures, you think they will affect the new years eve celebrations in times square or is that crowd saying no big deal well just stay really close together . I dont know because if you were that person whose going to go stand there youre probably somebody who has planned it for a long time like a bucket list kind of item but ill tell you what its probably about 10 degrees at midnight but its not just that youre going out at midnight you have to get there in many cases 1218 hours before and stand there, so when youre standing out in the air that long, its dangerous. I think there would be cases of hypothermia of frostbite. Its not just kind of a laughing matter to be real honest with you. Here is where the cold is here across parts of canada and north america were really kind of the only super abnormally cold spot on the globe right now but over the next few days well continue to watch this cold air kind of stay in place and with these little bouts of it moving down and across the lower 48 and it doesnt look like this pattern is going to break any time soon. In fact this just goes out until tuesday but past that we see another intrusion of it so were probably talking about this air mass thing here until about the second week of january, so about 12 days or so more of temperatures well below zero in most cases. This is your wind chill right now. You get the idea its cold all the way down across parts of the south abnormally cold and your actual air temperature 41 enodal also a little better than you were yesterday not going to last that long though up towards the north very cold, minus four in m inot, feels like minus 21 when you factor in the wind and we also have more snow so weve seen all those pictures especially out of erie, pennsylvania where we saw 65 inches of snow where we have another little clipper system moving through and behind that, well get the winds kicking up again so were going to be watching temperatures obviously so cold winds moving across the great lakes and maybe eight inches of snow over the weekend but take a look at this lauren. These are sundays high temperatures minus 10 in fargo, 40 in atlanta, 19 for a high in new york city thats the high. The low that night will be around into the singledigits wind chill obviously a problem. Not for me. I can tell you that much, how about you would you do it . Lauren bone chilling cold. Id do it i went to iceland in january i think you have as well rick. Actually iceland thats a great point. This is colder than iceland cold though. And when youre in iceland youre inside most of the time. Lauren im focusing on this 78 degrees in miami that i saw in that. Absolutely it will stay that way too. Lauren happy new years, rick. So while most of the nation is in a deep deep freeze over on capitol hill President Trump is figuring out a game plan for the nations crumbeling infrastructure, likely leading into the state of the union address. The president is set to meet at camp david with House Speaker paul ryan and Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell to come to a consensus on the issue. Meanwhile, homeowners and high tax states you know who you are, you probably called someone, youre accountant, your town, youre rushing to prepay your 2018 property taxes now before the new tax bill goes into effect january 1. This is a troubling warning that were getting from the irs that not everyone can prepay their taxes to save money. For more on this lets go to fox business blake burman standing by at the white house. I think a lot of Financial Advisors and accountants thought this was their off week. The phones would be quiet. Not the case. A lot of reporters thought this would be their off week too lauren we never think that. All of a sudden we get this tax story here. Look the irs tries to provide clarity with this and put out an advisory last night but it led to more confusion and this basically boils this down prepay ing 2018 property taxes down to two different factors the first one fairly straightforward if you want to do this for next year youve got to make the prepayment by this year so at some point within the next couple days but its factor number two that raises a lot of the question marks here and here is how its worded from the irs advisory. They say and i quote here. A prepayment of anticipated Real Property taxes that have not been assessed prior to 2018 are not deductible in 2017. So the translation there is if your municipality has not yet sent out a 2018 tax bill, you might be out of luck here. Now the Tax Foundation says that there is still several outstanding factors with this one. This is likely headed they feel toward litigation at some point but if you prepaid and it turns out you end up being on the wrong side of the coin on this one its not like youll end up losing your money. At worst if they did make the payment and its no longer deductible they simply provided an interestfree loan to their municipal government but there is always these complex questions and this is a one by one situation where contacting your tax advisor really is the best advice. One by one situation contact your tax advisor we could say that over and over again with this one. The Tax Foundation also warns that potentially because when youre messing with the deductions here at least altering them, this could potentially trigger some amt issues so thats something to also factor in they say but on the flip here, if youre able to prepay, usher in those deductions into 2017 when they get phased out in 2018 there could potentially be big savings here for homeowners. Lauren this is what everyone is talking about. True story i called my town yesterday and they said okay your 2017 taxes are this just if you want pay that for 2018 because we havent assessed 2018 overnight we hear the news that that might not be the case and calling my town all day. The phone, no one is answering the phone. One quick story . One of the photographers here in the Briefing Room currently has been listening to my live shots and my photographer told me he got out of here picked up his phone called his wife and theyve been trying to figure it out and they live in Montgomery County down the road to see if they should prepay. Lauren see . Blake youre helping people out. People listening to fox business might save some money. The middleman in this arrangement. Good to see you blake thank you so much. One guy who will likely see a major tax bill in 2018 is apple ceo tim cook. Apple giving cook and other top executives at the company a big pay raise for this year, so cook s total compensation for fiscal 2017 jumping 47 to 12. 8 million but 2018 that could pose some challenges as apple faces multiple lawsuits over slowing down older iphones plus what could be or what looks like sluggish iphone 10 sales. Hillary vaughn is in los angeles to tell us what the we can expect from apple in 2018. How is it looking hillary . Hillary lauren well youre exactly right. There are lawsuits looming over apple headed into the new year. The company did give a patton the back though to tim cook after hitting him with a pay cut last year when the companys iphone sales lagged behind and they missed their Revenue Target s but this year apple is shelling out over 100 million to the ceo who got a 74 bigger bonus than last year. Apples happy with tim cook but iphone users around the country are not after the tech giant admits theyve been capping battery life on older iphones, users are heading to court at least nine class action lawsuits filed in california, new york, and illinois claiming apples decision to medal with their battery life tricked them into buying a new phone instead of suggesting they simply replace the battery but apple is defend ing the move saying our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. But this isnt the only drama for apple, sustaining the hype into 2018 for their most expensive iphone ever is harder than the company anticipated. Tech analysts lowered their expectations for First Quarter sales and apple reportedly chopped their output for the period by 30 Million Units but taking a look at the iphone 10 Sales Performance in its first month instores shows the device didnt boost demand like investors initially anticipated. Tech analysts at Consumer Intelligence Research partners found the iphone 10 sales accounted for just 30 of total iphone sales in their first month. Those sales combined with apple s two other new devices the 8 and 8 plus fell short of peak levels that were reached in 2014 when 91 of all iphone sales went towards the new device on the market that month, but even with these three new devices on the shelf apple still had its lowest first month Sales Performance for new devices. Lauren . Lauren but do you know what hillary 2018 could make apple the first trillion dollar company. So thats instore for them. Always perhaps a possibility. Lauren hillary thank you so much in la and im just reading this kgi securities note that apple is working on bigger batteries for 2019 to deal with augmented reality and all that fancy stuff but first, lets get a quick check of the big board you can see the dow is up 39 points trading in very tight range today of about 34 points from top to bottom plus, 2017 the deadliest and the most destructive wildfire season in the history of california, but one major region is trying to get the word out, look the smoke has cleared. We are open for business. Come on out and lotto fever setting in as powerball and Mega Millions reached into the hundreds of millions of dollars each, so you might have a slim chance of winning the lottery but our traders give you actual market winners for the new year the floor show is next on countdown. 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Speaking of making history, the dow is on track for the longer streak of monthly gains up nine months in a row in nearly 59 years, here are the five dow stocks driving a rally in 2017, as you can see you got boeing, caterpillar, apple, visa, and walmart. Boeing is up almost 90 this year, so these names ranging across all industries so whose going to make history in the year ahead . We go to the floor, trading the New York Stock Exchange and the cme group at the New York Stock Exchange we have matt and the cm e ira epstein. Hello happy almost 2018. Matt, are we going to see the dow is not entirely out of the question. Volume is low, we could see a yearend, you know, rally tomorrow last trading day. Does the dow go to 25,000 . Well i was out for a couple days so i certainly hope it goes to 25,000 but it doesnt seem like its done a lot while i was off. Can we explode another 200 points from the dow . We certainly can. Theres low volume plenty of volatility but hard to get to that number by the end of the year. Lauren i. Ira, im looking at oil and what a phenomenal couple of weeks its been for the oil market. It seems to me that the story is supply due to the opec cuts actually taking a bite. Demand is pretty big whats the oil story for 2018 . Well i think the oil story for 2018 is going to be more of a trading range market than anything. Probably wti in the low 60s to maybe low 50s back and forth in that range a lot of new oil will come on line. Remember part of this big ramp up is because of the pipeline down in libya so you took 550,000barrels off and the opec move, they want to be able to sell more oil now, just the opposite of taking it off. Once aramco comes out the saudis have done their deal and got price where they want it for the brent and im not that big of a bull for 2018 and the oil complex. Lauren well you know, theres the thinking that the shale producers havent produced enough and we might not have enough supply to cover our needs what do you say about that larry well i think right now, looking at the market i would continue to tilt my portfolio towards value, away from growth and momentum, something that would really benefit especially the financials or the sub sector , inflationary issues when you consider the tax cuts when you consider higher interest margins, consider regulation, also going into industrials, materials, and even energy. Even if wti is down 50 a barrel the fundamentals are still good so i think it makes a lot of sense to tilt your portfolio towards value away from growth and momentum. Lauren only two negative sector s this year, energy is one of them, maybe that will be a winner in the new year, matt. Iraand larry happy new year gentlemen. Thank you. You too. Lauren United Health group is at the top of the dow 30 take a look at that as coca cola well theyre at the end there in the bottom right corner, jb hunt transport not the king of the road today its actually among the biggest laggers on the s p 500 after saying its Fourth Quarter profits yeah they will be lower than expected but the transport and Logistics Provider is up about 19 this year but it is down twothirds of 1 today. California making history this year in a way no place ever wants to. The most costly and most destructive wildfires the state has ever seen completely after aging hundreds of thousands of acres from la to wine country but now the winery owners say the negative Public Perception is actually more devastating than the fires to their businesses. Up next, we get an inside look at wine countrys fight for survival, countdown coming right back. I just finished months of chemo. But i dont want to talk about months. I want to talk about years. Treatments have gotten better, so. Im hoping for good years ahead. Thats thanks to Research Funded by the american cancer society. The same folks giving me free rides to treatment, insurance advice,and a place to stay during chemo. I need that stuff like you dont know. And now that you do, please give at cancer. Org lauren the weather was extreme in 2017 and Fire Fighting cost exploding to record levels as well as these wil