# Market Volatility, AI Music, and Geopolitical Shifts

**Podcast:** WSJ What’s News
**Published:** 2026-02-02

## Transcript

Volatility grips global markets as jittery investors sell off everything from gold to Bitcoin.
Plus the latest from Washington as Congress's bid to end a partial government shutdown gets tougher.
And Israel reconnects Gaza to Egypt in a major test of President Trump's peace plan.
This is a long-awaited moment for Gazans.
So Gazans have not been able to have a crossing that allows them to leave and enter since the start of the war.
It's Monday, February 2nd.
I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.
A market sell-off that began on Friday is continuing this morning, with U.S.
stock futures tracking a drop in global stocks.
Cryptocurrencies are also selling off with Bitcoin trading below $77,000.
But in a sign of potential stabilization, gold and silver prices have halted a slide that it gained steam over the weekend.
Here with more is Wall Street Journal markets reporter Chelsea Delaney.
Chelsea, bring us up to speed here.
A week ago, this metals rally had seemed practically unstoppable, but we've seen a big unwinding to put it mildly.
What's going on?
Yeah, this is really all about metals.
So over the past year, we've seen this incredible run-up in metals prices, gold, silver just soaring.
And last week it hit the wall.
So we saw a huge drop-off in silver prices.
We saw gold tumbling, and it looked like it was going to continue this morning, but it does seem to be stabilizing a bit.
I think for an investors, this has been a kind of mind-boggling rally.
And there's a lot of reasons that people will give you for why gold was up over 60% in the past year, or why silver is doubled in price.
And a lot of that has to do with concerns around the US.
So debasement, whether the unpredictability of US policy was going to erode the value of the dollar.
And, you know, one of the reasons why this might be turning around now is because last week Trump nominated Kevin Warsh as chair of the Federal Reserve.
He's seen by investors as kind of a safe hand.
He was a Fed governor.
He has helped sort of ease some of those concerns about the independence of the Fed and whether the Fed is going to pursue lower interest rates because Trump wants them to.
As you mentioned at the top, this is really about metals.
Friday truly a bloodbath for silver and gold posting their worst one-day sell-off since the 1980s.
Though this seems to be affecting a lot of assets beyond silver and gold.
I mean, is there anything that's not selling off right now?
And why?
You have to look pretty far to find something that isn't selling off right now.
It is such a widespread route across global markets.
But you know, we are seeing treasury bonds rise today.
So yields are going down as well.
The dollar, which had been getting hit really hard over the past year and in particular over the past couple of weeks, has sort of stabilized and risen a little bit.
So that actually should ease some concerns about the sell America trade.
Treasuries are acting as they should.
They're acting as a safe haven right now.
Is that kind of the reassurance probably many retail investors are looking for if they're worried, listening to all this, that a major correction is beginning to take shape?
How far this goes is up in the air.
We've just seen such an incredible rush into metals over the past year.
And it shifted from being something that was thought to be central bank driven, and now it's retail investors and these things.
Gold, this sort of safe haven is now trading like a meme stock.
So this might just be a positioning washout.
This bet got so crowded.
That was journal markets reporter Chelsea Delaney.
Chelsea, thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
House Minority Leader Democrat Hakeem Jeffries called the Senate deal, which extends Department of Homeland Security funding for two weeks in order to allow for talks on reigning in enforcement operations, a step in the right direction.
However, he said that many House Democrats believe that even two weeks of DHS funding is too much and are demanding a series of changes to DHS operations, as he explained on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Body cameras should be mandatory.
Speaking on NBC News' meet the press, Republican House Majority Leader Mike Johnson called some of those requests reasonable, but pushed back on the requirement for judicial warrants as well as calls for no masks.
And in some circumstances, they've they've had a price put on their heads.
Johnson will need to keep almost all Republicans on board to end the shutdown in the coming days.
No easy task, given that some in his party are floating their own demands and are frustrated over being painted into a corner by Democrats.
Further complicating matters, Johnson will be swearing in a new House Democrat as early as today, shrinking Republicans' majority to 218 to 214 after Christian Menefee won a special election in Texas.
And the Justice Department's latest release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein exposed the names of 43 of his victims, including many who haven't shared their identities publicly or who were minors when they were abused by the notorious sex offender.
A process some victims told the journal was re-traumatizing.
Since Friday's document release, media outlets and influencers have started publishing the women's names, leaving some to say they've already begun facing online harassment.
For more on the latest trove of documents, including a look at the famous names included in the release, from Elon Musk to Google co-founder Sergei Brin.
Check out the link we've left in our show notes.
And we'll look at the influx of AI in music.
Safe viso steuer.
Hold it down to be in the Rafa border crossing between Gaza and Egypt is reopening today, allowing Palestinians to enter and exit the Enclave for the first time since the war between Hamas and Israel began.
It's Monday morning, local time in Israel.
We are hearing that Gazans are lining up at the border and the crossing process is beginning.
Those entering Gaza through the crossing have to be residents who left after the outbreak of the war in October 2023, not before the war.
That's a restriction that Israel wanted.
Tenants signed a deal with the Trump family to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, which steered around $187 million to Trump family entities.
The deal came just months before the UAE won access to American AI chips, something the Royal had been pushing the U.S.
for.
And in a contest of Super Bowl halftime stars, Kendrick Lamar took home last night's Grammy Award for Record of the Year, while this year's performer Bad Bunny won Album of the Year.
The awards come at a pivotal moment for the music industry as a surge in AI artists sparks fierce debate among fans and creators alike, as well as a rush to clarify whether an artificial artist could one day walk away with a Grammy.
AI does not disqualify you from being able to submit for a Grammy.
However, with an estimated 50,000 AI-generated tracks being uploaded to Spotify daily, record labels and artists are being forced to confront AI, as entertainment reporter Catherine Sayer explains.
Have record labels that are now partnering with AI companies in search of the best way to do that.
The big three labels, Warner, Universal, and Sony, they had sued the biggest music AI company, Suno, alleging it essentially stole copyrighted music to train its model.
And now Universal has partnered with another AI music company, Udio.
And they're working on one of those social type platforms where fans can create this music.
Berliner Stadtwerke.