April 17th, 2026 | Watching Sports Has Become a Nightmare, Mentioning AI to Increase Stock Prices, Meta Becoming the Digital Ad King, Beware of Income Taxes When Gifting & More

Has watching your favorite sports become a nightmare?
It used to be easy to watch a football game as you generally had maybe two different networks it would be on and it was easy to find. Well, now the promise of streaming, reducing costs and making it easier for people to watch the shows and sports they want when they want has really missed the mark. The list can go on and on of where to watch the football game or sports you want to watch. Maybe the game will be on ESPN, Paramount+, TNT, NBC’s Peacock, CBS or maybe you’ll have to go to Amazon prime or the YouTube channel. It can be very frustrating trying to find the game you want and then you find out you don’t have the right subscription, and you have to pay extra to sign up for it. Well, maybe the justice department is coming to your rescue. Last week it was reported that the justice department is investigating whether the NFL is engaging in anti-competitive tactics that harm consumers. The investigation involves whether having many outlets for sports viewing is costing consumers far more and the NFL is taking advantage of its behemoth size and demand. There is no doubt that sports are getting out of control and just recently the NBA signed a record payday for their media rights. This has opened the door for many other sports, including the NFL, which apparently…

To increase your stock price, just mention AI
I’m of course being facetious, but in many cases, it appears that way. This past week, Allbirds, which was a popular shoe company just a few years ago, announced it was pivoting from shoes to artificial intelligence and the stock at one point spiked by more than 700%. A large reason for the craziness is the market cap of the company was tiny at just about $21 million as of Tuesday’s close. When companies are this small there is more room for manipulation and wild swings as fewer capital inflows are needed to drive …

It looks like Meta will become the digital ad king
Meta has been very patient growing its ad sales by establishing substantial user habits with their products like Reels, the microblogging site Threads, and even WhatsApp. All have been very slow to introduce advertisements to their users, but that patience has paid off as worldwide ad growth for Meta increased around 22.1% in 2025 and it’s estimated it will increase another 24.1% in 2026. Because of how large Meta is, it was expected that growth would slow, but that has not happened. Their growth is far higher than Google’s growth, which is projected to be around 11.9%, about the same as last year. The ad revenue numbers are staggering with Meta expected to reach $243.46 billion, about $4 billion more than Google’s $239.54 billion. That growth has not been cheap for…

Financial Planning: Beware of Income Taxes when Gifting
When parents give assets to their children, the income tax impact depends on what’s being gifted. Cash is usually the easiest and most tax-friendly option because there’s no built-in gain. There is no direct income tax to the giver or receiver, but if parents gift things like appreciated stock or real estate, the child receives the original cost basis as well. This means they will owe capital gains tax on all the appreciation when they sell it. In contrast, if the child inherits those same assets after the parents pass away, the basis typically steps up to current market value, wiping out that taxable gain. Because of this, it’s often smarter to gift cash or assets with little appreciation and hold onto…

Companies Discussed: Levi Strauss & Co. (LEVI), American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL), HP Inc. (HPQ) & Caterpillar Inc. (CAT)