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Andrew here. Happy New Year and welcome to 2026. This Saturday, we’ve put together a list of our biggest questions for the next 12 months. As you know, I love asking pointed questions — to help frame an issue and get to the bottom of thorny topics. There are a lot of them these days, from A.I. to the economy to politics. Below is what’s on my mind and that of our DealBook team as we consider the year ahead. I’d love to hear what questions you have — and any answers.
What happens when more artificial intelligence initiatives leave the pilot stage? Researchers at M.I.T. concluded last summer that while organizations had invested from $30 billion to $40 billion into A.I., they had basically nothing to show for it. Ninety-five percent of organizations were getting zero return, they wrote in a report based on structured interviews, public A.I. initiatives and announcements and surveys.
While tools like ChatGPT have been widely put to use in workplaces, they’ve mostly helped individual productivity, not rewired how companies and businesses operate. In 2026, more disruptive uses of A.I. will make it out of the R&D stage. And we may get a better understanding of what this sort of advancement means across professions and industries.
How will President Trump’s policies affect the economy? The U.S. ended the year on a strong note, with robust G.D.P. growth, and heading into the midterm elections President Trump will try to keep the good times rolling.
Expect him to continue pressuring the Fed to lower interest rates. He could have a potential rate-cutting ally inside the central bank, too, as he looks ready to make his pick for a new Fed chair in the coming days. At the same time, corporate tax cuts from the One Big Beautiful Bill could lift profits and bolster capex spending.
But will such a stimulus — plus the lingering effects of Trump’s tariffs — drive up inflation? If so, how will the Fed respond? The challenge of wrangling consensus out of policymakers could bedevil the next Fed chair too.
Is private credit a ticking time bomb? While many on Wall Street are worried about the possibility of an A.I. bubble, the famed bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach is worried about a different kind of risk: the boom in private lending. The founder and C.E.O. of DoubleLine Capital, Mr. Gundlach recently warned that the next big crisis in financial markets will come from the fast-growing private-credit market, which lacks transparency and liquidity compared to public markets.
Private credit was a $3 trillion market at the start of 2025, according to Morgan Stanley, and is projected to grow to $5 trillion by 2029. If the economy slows, and borrowers start to feel the squeeze, causing lenders to mark down losses, the pain could spread quickly. Moody’s said recently that banks have nearly $300 billion in loans outstanding to private credit providers.
Will prediction markets maintain their momentum? Kalshi and Polymarket first broke through to mainstream consciousness in 2024 when they accurately called the results of the presidential election. Now they’re big business: Kalshi recently raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation — less than two months after it collected money at a $5 billion level — while Polymarket is reportedly seeking funds at a $15 billion valuation.
That’s in part because prediction markets are now seen as more than just ways to bet on the outcome of a political race. Kalshi has grown to multibillion-dollar trading volumes because it has become a sports-betting powerhouse so successful that it has prodded online sports books like DraftKings and FanDuel to get into prediction markets. And even Wall Street giants like the Intercontinental Exchange are investing in Polymarket.
The question is how much bigger can the prediction markets get. Tarek Mansour, Kalshi’s co-founder and C.E.O., says that he wants to eventually let people bet on anything. But regulators, especially state officials that have sued the companies seemingly to get a piece of prediction market revenue, may have something to say about that.
Is crypto too big to fail? A Bitcoin crash that wiped $1 trillion in market value in October exposed the volatility of the crypto markets (and dangers of the mountain of bets made on margin). At the same time, the digital currency is an increasingly mainstream feature of the American economy. Congress brought stablecoins into the regulatory fold, crypto is now in some retirement accounts and the currency has been adopted by major banks and asset managers.
If the Fed continues to cut rates — as Wall Street expects — that could increase liquidity and possibly boost the crypto market. But if things go further south for the asset, would a pro-crypto Washington step in to cushion the blow?
Will the space industry blast off? A potential SpaceX I.P.O. — at a potential valuation of around $1.5 trillion — could be a watershed market event in 2026. It might also prove to be a seminal moment for the space economy, which McKinsey projects to reach $1.8 trillion over the next decade. China is planning to land on the moon by 2030 while NASA is planning a return. A new space race could help draw in more private equity investment dollars and spark established aerospace players to go start-up shopping.
Will Democrats regain their leverage in Washington? Encouraged by victories in governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as a major ballot initiative in California, the party is hoping for a blue wave in next year’s midterm elections. President Trump’s approval rating has dipped as voters have soured on his handling of the economy.
But Democrats face long odds in reversing the Senate as almost all of the Republican seats up for election are in states that Mr. Trump carried by at least 10 percentage points in 2024. Even if they hold onto their momentum, the Democrats will be in a tight contest to reverse the three-seat Republican majority in the House after a race for states to redraw congressional districts that has reduced the number of realistically competitive seats. If the Democrats do regain control of the House, it could shift the dynamics of policy debates on everything from A.I. to tariffs.
What’s in store for oil prices? It’s been a tough stretch in the oil patch. The prices of Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude fell nearly 20 percent in 2025. It was the third straight year of declines and the worst one-year drop since 2020. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is forecasting that prices will fall even further in the near term, to an average of $55 per barrel for Brent crude in the first quarter of 2026. That should provide more relief for drivers with lower gasoline prices at the pump. But a continued price slump could stress small- to mid-size oil companies in the U.S. and lead to cuts in investment and lower production.
There are a couple of wild cards to track: If the Trump administration succeeds in ending the war in Ukraine, it may lift sanctions on Russia’s oil industry. And the effects of Trump’s blockade of some oil tankers to and from Venezuela have yet to be seen.
Also on our minds:
What’s next in the war for Warner Bros. Discovery? The biggest deal drama of 2025 has spilled into 2026, and there’s more to come. The board of Warner Bros. Discovery will reportedly reject Paramount’s latest takeover offer and stick with the bid it already accepted from Netflix. But will Paramount accept defeat?
How will Mamdani work with the business community? The newly elected mayor of New York City has sought to charm business leaders, who spent more than $25 million trying to defeat him.
Will Wall Street raise its bid on college football? The University of Utah recently agreed to partner with a New York private equity firm on the operations of its athletics department in a groundbreaking deal that could be worth $500 million to the school. Many observers expect a flood of similar deals to follow.
Will this summer’s World Cup tournament be a winning moment for soccer in the U.S.? FIFA, the international governing body, is already in hot water over soaring ticket prices for the matches set in North America. But there are also global concerns about how the Trump administration’s border crackdown — including a wider plan that would require tourists to the U.S. to share with the government years’ worth of social media posts — could mar the games.
We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to deal...@nytimes.com.
Andrew Ross Sorkin is a columnist and the founder of DealBook, the flagship business and policy newsletter at The Times and an annual conference.
Bernhard Warner is a senior editor for DealBook, a newsletter from The Times, covering business trends, the economy and the markets.
Niko Gallogly is a Times reporter, covering business for the DealBook newsletter.
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