Your Guide to the 2026 Tax Filing Season: Don't Miss These Dates!

Everything You Need to Know for the 2026 Tax Filing Season The 2026 tax filing season starts next week. Here are the key dates you need to know. During this filing season, taxpayers will need to use the newly created Schedule 1-A to take advantage of the new tax deductions and credits created by the 'One Big Beautiful Bill', such as the no-tax-on-tips deduction or an additional deduction for seniors. The IRS is already accepting tax returns through the IRS Free File program, and the online guided tax software is available to taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of $89,000 or less.3 Once taxpayers receive the necessary tax forms, such as their 2025 W-2, they can submit their tax return to the IRS, and it will be held until the IRS officially begins processing returns next week. Read the full article here. -Elizabeth Guevara Netflix Stock Hasn't Impressed Investors Lately. Its Deal for Warner Bros. Isn't Helping Investors are scrutinizing Netflix's results more closely than ever. They don't like what they see. The streaming giant's stock was down nearly 5% in recent trading, sliding after reporting earnings that narrowly topped analysts' estimates, as Netflix (NFLX) failed to impress investors with its outlook amid concerns around its efforts to buy Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The move lower extends a monthslong decline for the entertainment stock, with Wednesday's losses leaving Netflix shares down nearly 40% from last summer's highs. Uncertainty around Netflix's pending purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, which faces likely regulatory scrutiny as well as a competing bid that has forced the company to rework its offer, has added to the pressure on the stock. Read the full article here. -Aaron McDade Energy Is Top-Performing S&P 500 Sector Wednesday On a day when nearly every S&P 500 sector is in the green, none is performing better than Energy. The S&P 500 Energy Sector was up 2.3% in recent trading, the best performance of the 11 industries tracked by the benchmark index. Nine sectors are in positive territory Wednesday, with only Consumer Staples (down 0.5%) and Utilities (down 0.1%) in the red. EQT (EQT), Texas Pacific Land Trust (TPL), and Expand Energy (EXE) were the top individual performers in the sector, up 6.8%, 5%, and 4.6%, respectively. Is 2026 the Right Year to Buy a House? Key Market Trends You Need to Know Home sales remained near historic lows in 2025, as high housing costs and elevated mortgage rates continued to keep buyers on the sidelines. But housing affordability is expected to improve in 2026—if only slightly. That could create an opportunity for house hunters who have been looking for the right moment to enter the market. Here are some housing trends to watch if you’re in the market to buy a home in 2026. Mortgage rates peaked at more than 7% in early 2025 and then eased in the second half of the year to around 6.2%. That offered some relief from the high borrowing costs that have helped freeze the housing market. Read the full article here. -Terry Lane This Stock Has Had the Best 2026 in the S&P 500. It Just Got Another Boost. The hottest tech stock in the S&P 500 this year got even hotter today, marking continued enthusiasm for a pocket of the AI trade even as U.S. markets sputtered to start the trading week. Shares of Sandisk (SNDK) hit a new intraday record high Wednesday, pushing its year-to-date returns to about 100%—outperforming the so-called Magnificent 7, as well as the broader market, by a wide margin. Today's 5% gain follows yesterday's of nearly 10%, best in the S&P 500, on a day when markets broadly, including tech shares, retreated amid trade and geopolitical uncertainty and a move toward haven assets. Yesterday's lift came after Citi boosted its earnings estimates and target prices for Sandisk, as well as other data storage stocks that have been on a tear lately. They remain key beneficiaries, the analysts wrote, of "solid hyperscaler demand supporting higher pricing" for memory, the bank's research analysts said in a 2026 outlook report for tech hardware companies published yesterday. Citi analysts including Asiya Merchant said that Sandisk "sounded the most constructive" among the companies it hosted at company meetings at CES 2026 earlier this month on NAND (a type of flash memory) industry fundamentals.1 Sandisk told Citi there was upside in demand associated with data centers, including from Nvidia's (NVDA) just-launched Vera Rubin AI computing platform. That would more than offset any impact to its business from lower demand related to PCs or smartphones, according to the Citi report. Read the full article here. -Crystal Kim Here's How Much Traders Expect Intel Stock to Move After Earnings This Week Intel is set to report fourth-quarter earnings after the market closes on Thursday, with traders anticipating a big move from the chipmaker's stock following the results.1 Options pricing suggests traders expect Intel (INTC) stock could move up to 8% in either direction by the end of the week. At the high end, a move of that size from Tuesday's close near $49 could push the stock up to $52, its highest point since early 2022. At the low end, the stock could drop to around $44, about where it was early last week, before an upgrade by KeyBanc analysts sent the stock higher. Intel's stock is up some 27% since the struggling chipmaker last reported earnings in October, with results that came in stronger than analysts expected. Rumors about potential new customers, along with a show of support from the Trump administration after the U.S. government took a big stake in August, have also boosted optimism about the chipmaker's stock. Read the full article here. -Aaron McDade Whatever Comes Next With Greenland, The Uncertainty Poses Economic Risks The uncertainty that roiled the economy and undermined the job market in 2025 flared up again this weekend after President Donald Trump renewed his threats to seize Greenland from U.S. ally Denmark. Trump stoked a fresh round of unease Saturday when he threatened to impose a 10% tariff against eight European countries, escalating to 25% in June, until Denmark sells the autonomous territory to the U.S. European leaders are reportedly considering retaliatory moves, and French President Emanuel Macron proposed invoking the European Union's "anti-coercion" instrument. Those countermeasures, sometimes called a "trade bazooka," could include restricting imports and exports, restricting access to financial markets, and imposing a wide range of other punishments. Why This Wall Street Strategist Was 'Inclined to Buy' as Greenland Tensions Battered Stocks Yesterday Stocks posted their worst day in months on Tuesday. Some strategists say it’s an opportunity. “I think at worst maybe you get a 4-5% drawdown here—call it 6,500 on the S&P. I’m inclined to buy it because I think the set-up into this was quite good,” Chris Verrone, chief market strategist at Strategas, told CNBC on Tuesday. The S&P 500 fell 2.1% Tuesday to about 6,800 as investors responded to President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on select European countries if they refuse to allow the U.S. to acquire Greenland. Verrone said signs of “a pro-cyclical recovery... through all different asset classes—bond yields, commodities, transports, retail, banks,” underpinned his bullish outlook. The pullback to start this week, he said, could even help to cool sentiment that Verrone said “was getting a little too hot” and posing a risk to the stock market. As with last year’s bouts of Trump-driven volatility, “the bark will be worse than the bite on this issue,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives of Trump’s new tariff threats. Read the full article here. -Colin Laidley United Airlines Made $3.4B in 2025 But Lost Money Flying Passengers It does not appear likely that any of the four biggest U.S. airlines—Delta Air Lines (DAL), United Airlines (UAL), American Airlines (AAL), and Southwest Airlines (LUV)—will have made money actually transporting passengers last year. United announced its fiscal fourth-quarter results after the bell Tuesday, and reported it made $3.4 billion in 2025 profit. However, it posted higher cost per available seat mile (CASM), 16.46 cents, than passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM), 16.18 cents. Last week, Delta also registered higher CASM (19.31 cents) than PRASM (17.37). American and Southwest report Q4 figures next week, and both were significantly to the bad side of the ratio through the first three quarters. (The main reason airlines can turn a profit boils down to something in your pocket, not your luggage: credit cards.) United's Q4 profit and revenue topped analysts' estimates, and shares are up 3% before the bell after it issued a rosy outlook. "Strong revenue momentum has continued into 2026," United said. "The week ending January 4th was the highest flown revenue week in United history, and the week ending January 11th was the highest ticketing week and the highest week for business sales in United history." Kraft Heinz Stock Drops as Berkshire May Sell Its 325M Shares Warren Buffett was "disappointed" Kraft Heinz (KHC) planned to split into two. His successor as Berkshire Hathaway CEO may exit the stock entirely. Kraft Heinz shares dropped 5.5% in premarket trading Wednesday, a day after the food giant revealed in a regulatory filing that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) may sell "up to an aggregate of 325,442,152 shares of the Company’s common stock." Berkshire had lowered the book value of its Kraft Heinz stake by about $3.8 billion after taxes in the second quarter, and owned 27.5% of the company's outstanding common stock as of Sept. 30, 2025. Buffett, who stepped down as CEO of the conglomerate at the end of the year, told CNBC in early September that he was "disappointed" in Kraft Heinz's planned split, and that Greg Abel, who took over as Berkshire Hathaway's chief executive, expressed that to Kraft Heinz. Shares of Kraft Heinz entered Wednesday down nearly 20% over the past year. Treasury Yields Soared Yesterday. Why That Could Be a Big Problem The bond market, which has made President Donald Trump rethink policy before, is protesting again and sending borrowing costs higher. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note—a key input into mortgage rates and business investment decisions—rose to its highest level in months on Tuesday. The jump followed Trump’s demand that the United States should be allowed to buy Greenland, risking a trade war with the European Union. “Investors are concerned that the threat of a 200% tariff on French wine and champagne could be the beginning of a further escalation in the trade tensions that many had hoped to leave behind in 2025,” Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients. The 10-year yield jumped to 4.30% yesterday, its highest closing level since Aug. 21. Yields move in the opposite direction from bond prices. The 10-year yield ticked lower to below 4.29% early Wednesday. Read the full article here. -Polo Rocha