A New Year: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
For me, 2025 was a year of accomplishments and change. Here’s to a year of navigating an eventful 2026 together!
Before January gets away from us (and even as we are busy working on a commentary regarding the administration’s attack against Jerome Powell), I want to pause today to look back at my own 2025 and ahead to 2026, as consequential developments make the news at an accelerating pace.
Looking Back on 2025
2025 was a year of transitions and shocks. After 52 years building Cumberland Advisors from startup to billions under management, I stepped into a Strategic Advisor role and launched the Kotok Report.
In January, I was named by the Climate Adaptation Center as a “2025 Climate Champion” honoree.
In February, I and my co-authors published The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks — a project years in the making, on how health crises reshape economies, interest rates, and inequality. I gave my first speech about the book during the Global Interdependence Center’s “Central Banking Series Conference” with the University of the Bahamas.
The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks became a central theme in podcasts, panels, and my Substack throughout the year, including when we earned a spot in the 22nd “Annual Summer Reading List for Business Leaders” by the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business faculty: https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/research/summer-reading-list-2025. I invite you to learn more about our book here: https://www.thefedandtheflu.com.
In September, Mid Penn Bancorp announced its intent to acquire Cumberland Advisors — a milestone for the firm I co-founded in 1973: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7377353860564201472/
Camp Kotok 2025 was sold out, with 50 participants at Leen’s Lodge. The defense and geopolitics panel — featuring US and Ukrainian veterans — produced some of the most powerful discussions I’ve witnessed at these gatherings. Takeaways here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7360782476627087360/#CampKotok
Throughout the year, I wrote extensively on tariffs, Fed independence, and immigration policy. As I noted in December: “I don’t expect inflation to subside... I do expect economic shocks out of an economy that is being shocked daily.” https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7402459891363106816/
Looking ahead to 2026
Fed governance questions remain unresolved. Tariff policy continues to generate uncertainty. Gold hit records while stocks marched higher on AI enthusiasm (See “GOLD!” on YouTube.)
And the Donroe Doctrine is reshaping geopolitics, potentially profoundly — more coming from us on that soon. The themes that dominated 2025 aren’t going away.
Barclays’ Ajay Rajadhyaksha summed it up perfectly yesterday:
The headlines have been flying fast and furious, seemingly from the moment the New Year started. First was the Venezuela surprise. Then came a renewed push for Greenland and the possibility that the US might intervene in Iran. The Supreme Court’s IEEPA decision could come any day now. Secretary Bessent stated that a new Fed chair announcement could come next week. And overnight we learned that the DoJ had subpoenaed the Fed.
(“Eyes on the Prize” | Thinking Macro, email, January 12, 2026)
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Thank you to everyone who has engaged with my work. I wish you a healthy and prosperous 2026.
David
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