Scott Bessent, the billionaire hedge fund manager whom President-elect Donald J. Trump picked to be his Treasury secretary, plans to divest from dozens of funds, trusts and investments in preparation to become the nation’s top economic policymaker.

Those plans were released on Saturday along with the publication of an ethics agreement and financial disclosures that Mr. Bessent submitted ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing next Thursday.

The documents show the extent of the wealth of Mr. Bessent, whose assets and investments appear to be worth in excess of $700 million. Mr. Bessent was formerly the top investor for the billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros and has been a major Republican donor and adviser to Mr. Trump.

If confirmed as Treasury secretary, Mr. Bessent, 62, will steer Mr. Trump’s economic agenda of cutting taxes, rolling back regulations and imposing tariffs as he seeks to renegotiate trade deals. He will also play a central role in the Trump administration’s expected embrace of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Although Mr. Trump won the election by appealing to working-class voters who have been dogged by high prices, he has turned to wealthy Wall Street investors such as Mr. Bessent and Howard Lutnick, a billionaire banker whom he tapped to be commerce secretary, to lead his economic team. Linda McMahon, another billionaire, has been picked as education secretary, and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is leading an unofficial agency known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

In a letter to the Treasury Department’s ethics office, Mr. Bessent outlined the steps he would take to “avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest in the event that I am confirmed for the position of secretary of the Department of Treasury.”

Mr. Bessent said he would shutter Key Square Capital Management, the investment firm that he founded, and resign from his Bessent-Freeman Family Foundation and from Rockefeller University, where he has been chairman of the investment committee.

The financial disclosure form, which provides ranges for the value of his assets, reveals that Mr. Bessent owns as much as $25 million of farmland in North Dakota, which earns an income from soybean and corn production. He also owns a property in the Bahamas that is worth as much as $25 million. Last November, Mr. Bessent put his historic pink mansion in Charleston, S.C., on the market for $22.5 million.

Mr. Bessent is selling several investments that could pose potential conflicts of interest including a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund; an account that trades the renminbi, China’s currency; and his stake in All Seasons, a conservative publisher. He also has a margin loan, or line of credit, with Goldman Sachs of more than $50 million.

As an investor, Mr. Bessent has long wagered on the rising strength of the dollar and has betted against, or “shorted,” the renminbi, according to a person familiar with Mr. Bessent’s strategy who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss his portfolio. Mr. Bessent gained notoriety in the 1990s by betting against the British pound and earning his firm, Soros Fund Management, $1 billion. He also made a high-profile bet against the Japanese yen.

Mr. Bessent, who will be overseeing the U.S. Treasury market, holds over $100 million in Treasury bills.

Cabinet officials are required to divest certain holdings and investments to avoid the potential for conflicts of interest. Although this can be an onerous process, it has some potential tax benefits.

The tax code contains a provision that allows securities to be sold and the capital gains tax on such sales deferred if the full proceeds are used to buy Treasury securities and certain money-market funds. The tax continues to be deferred until the securities or money-market funds are sold.

Even while adhering to the ethics guidelines, questions about conflicts of interest can still emerge.

Mr. Trump’s Treasury secretary during his first term, Steven Mnuchin, divested from his Hollywood film production company after joining the administration. However, as he was negotiating a trade deal in 2018 with China — an important market for the U.S. film industry — ethics watchdogs raised questions about whether Mr. Mnuchin had conflicts because he had sold his interest in the company to his wife.

Mr. Bessent was chosen for the Treasury after an internal tussle among Mr. Trump’s aides over the job. Mr. Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s transition team co-chair and the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, made a late pitch to secure the Treasury secretary role for himself before Mr. Trump picked him to be Commerce secretary.

During that fight, which spilled into view, critics of Mr. Bessent circulated documents disparaging his performance as a hedge fund manager.

Mr. Bessent’s most recent hedge fund, Key Square Capital, launched to much fanfare in 2016, garnering $4.5 billion in investor money, including $2 billion from Mr. Soros, but manages much less now. A fund he ran in the early 2000s had a similarly unremarkable performance.

This year just got started, but it is already shaping up nicely for U.S. airlines.

After several setbacks, the industry ended 2024 in a fairly strong position because of healthy demand for tickets and the ability of several airlines to control costs and raise fares, experts said. Barring any big problems, airlines — especially the largest ones — should enjoy a great year, analysts said.

“I think it’s going to be pretty blue skies,” said Tom Fitzgerald, an airline industry analyst for the investment bank TD Cowen.

In recent weeks, many major airlines upgraded forecasts for the all-important last three months of the year. And on Friday, Delta Air Lines said it collected more than $15.5 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024, a record.

“As we move into 2025, we expect strong demand for travel to continue,” Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said in a statement. That put the airline on track to “deliver the best financial year in Delta’s 100-year history,” he said.

The airline also beat analysts’ profit estimates and said it expected earnings per share, a measure of profitability, to rise more than 10 percent this year.

Delta’s upbeat report offers a preview of what are expected to be similarly rosy updates from other carriers that will report earnings in the next few weeks. That should come as welcome news to an industry that has been stifled by various challenges even as demand for travel has rocketed back after the pandemic.

“For the last five years, it’s felt like every bird in the sky was a black swan,” said Ravi Shanker, an analyst focused on airlines at Morgan Stanley. “But it appears that this industry does have its ducks in a row.”

That is, of course, if everything goes according to plan, which it rarely does. Geopolitics, terrorist attacks, air safety problems and, perhaps most important, an economic downturn could tank demand for travel. Rising costs, particularly for jet fuel, could erode profits. Or the industry could face problems like a supply chain disruption that limits availability of new planes or makes it harder to repair older ones.

Early last year, a panel blew off a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight, resurfacing concerns about the safety of the manufacturer’s planes, which are used on most flights operated by U.S. airlines, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm.

The incident forced Boeing to slow production and delay deliveries of jets. That disrupted the plans of some airlines that had hoped to carry more passengers. And there was little airlines could do to adjust because the world’s largest jet manufacturer, Airbus, didn’t have the capacity to pick up the slack — both it and Boeing have long order backlogs. In addition, some Airbus planes were afflicted by an engine problem that has forced carriers to pull the jets out of service for inspections.

There was other tumult, too. Spirit Airlines filed for bankruptcy. A brief technology outage wreaked havoc on many airlines, disrupting travel and resulting in thousands of canceled flights in the heart of the busy summer season. And during the summer, smaller airlines flooded popular domestic routes with seats, squeezing profits during what is normally the most lucrative time of year.

But the industry’s financial position started improving when airlines reduced the number of flights and seats. While that was bad for travelers, it lifted fares and profits for airlines.

“You’re in a demand-over-supply imbalance, which gives the industry pricing power,” said Andrew Didora, an analyst at the Bank of America.

At the same time, airlines have been trying to improve their businesses. American Airlines overhauled a sales strategy that had frustrated corporate customers, helping it win back some travelers. Southwest Airlines made changes aimed at lowering costs and increasing profits after a push by the hedge fund Elliott Management. And JetBlue Airways unveiled a strategy with similar aims, after a less contentious battle with the investor Carl C. Icahn.

Those improvements and industry trends, along with the stabilization of fuel, labor and other costs, have created the conditions for what could be a banner 2025. “All of this is the best setup we’ve had in decades,” Mr. Shanker said.

That won’t materialize right away, though. Travel demand tends to be subdued in the winter. But business trips pick up somewhat, driven by events like this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The positive outlook for 2025 is probably strongest for the largest U.S. airlines — Delta, United and American. All three are well positioned to take advantage of buoyant trends, including steadily rebounding business travel and customers who are eager to spend more on better seats and international flights.

But some smaller airlines may do well, too. JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and others have been adding more premium seats, which should help lift profits.

While he is optimistic overall, Mr. Shanker acknowledged that the industry was vulnerable to a host of potential problems.

“I mean, this time last year you were talking about doors falling off planes,” he said. “So who knows what might happen.”