WSJ What’s News - Gold Hits New Record as Investors Worry About U.S. Economic Outlook

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

P.M. Edition for Oct. 7. Gold prices soared to $4,000 a troy ounce for the first time, topping off an investor rush for the precious metal this year that has defied past patterns. David Uberti, who covers commodities for the Journal, joins to discuss what’s driving the surge in price. Plus, Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, said it will invest up to $2 billion in crypto-based prediction platform Polymarket. WSJ reporter Alexander Osipovich explains why Intercontinental Exchange is interested in it. And brands desperate to connect with young people are fueling a boom in the business of Gen Z translation. We hear from WSJ marketing reporter Katie Deighton about the kinds of companies doing this translation, and how Gen Z is responding. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. gold prices.com slash ymx. Gold prices top $4,000 for the first time, as investors worry about the U.S.

Economic Outlook. Plus, why the owner of the New York Stock Exchange is investing in prediction platform polymarket. And as Gen Z comes of spending age, a multimillion dollar industry of Gen Z translators is emerging. They're very much capitalizing on the CMO, around messing up with this generation, who are, of course, very vocal when they think that companies or corporations are doing something wrong. It's Tuesday, October 7th. I'm Alex O'Sullough for the Wall Street Journal.

This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Gold soared to above $4,000 a Troy ounce for the first time today. The price of the precious metal has surged this year more than it did during some of America's biggest crises. Rising more than 50 percent, futures run up in 2025 has outpaced rallies during the pandemic and the 2007-2009 recession. Not since the inflationary shock of 1979 has gold catapulted so much higher in a year. WSJ Commodities reporter David Uberti joins me now to discuss. David, in those times that I mentioned, there was a disruption, there. This time, not so much. Why is this happening now? As you pointed out, there has been

no economic calamity this year that has driven gold prices higher. This makes it really unusual compared to history. And it stems in part from what's happening in the White House. As we know, President Donald Trump has tried to reorder global trade, which has had a lot of turbulent effects on what the U.S. dollar is doing in global markets. More recently, though, gold has really rallied as inflation expectations have risen. Inflation, as we know, if it goes up over the course of time, it eats into companies' profits. It basically makes your dollars worth less over the course of time. In an environment like that, gold becomes more valuable, especially if U.S. economic growth happens to be slowing, which is what economists tend

to think is happening right now. So who is buying up all this gold? In short, everyone. It starts with Central banks, central banks across the world have been buying gold for the better part of a decade, if not longer. Retail investors have increasingly bought gold, particularly from Western countries like in the U.S. and Europe as well. Hedge funds and other speculators have also piled in as well. So it's created this really weird dynamic. The stock market is at records. People are making money, but at the same time, they're adding to their exposure in gold, which is where you go when things hit the fan, right? So it's created this very weird dichotomy where everyone wants to get in on the action of all the things that are going up, stocks, AI, Invidia.

At the same time, they're worried about what happens if they go down. And one way to hedge your exposure to that is through gold. That was WSJ reporter, David Uberti. Thanks, David. Thanks. As gold continued to soar, U.S. stocks fell today. The NASDAQ closed about 0.7 percent down. the S&P 500 dipped about 0.4%, and the Dow slipped 0.2%.

The World Trade Organization said today that it expects global trade to increase more rapidly than previously expected this year. The WTO now forecast that global trade will increase by 2.4% in 2025, having expected to see a 0.9% rise as recently as August and a 0.2% decline in April. Growth is now forecast to be much closer to the 3% projected before the U.S. presidential election than in the immediate aftermath of President Trump's first tariff announcements. WS.J economics editor Paul Hannon explains why the organization updated its outlook. U.S. businesses front-loaded. They built inventories ahead of the expected tariff announcements. So there was a surge in trade in the first quarter, and that hasn't been fully offset by slowdowns later in the evening. year. The second thing that happened is that other countries didn't really retaliate, and that was

the sort of expectation back in April. The big exception there is China, but the EU, for example, which is a big part of global trade, did not respond with higher duties on U.S. exports, and no other countries have tariffed each other. The third thing, actually probably the big surprise is the AI investment boom has led to a surge in imports of semiconductors, servers, processors, all of the things you need to be able to build AI capacity. They're still expecting tariffs to slow trade. They're just changing the timing of that. President Trump said today that the U.S. could negotiate separate trade deals with Canada and Mexico,

rather than renegotiating the three-way trade agreement between the countries that is up for review next year. Speaking from the Oval Office next to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney this afternoon, President Trump answered a reporter's question about whether he plans to renegotiate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or U.S.M.C.A. Well, we can renegotiate it, and that would be good, or we can just do different deals. We're allowed to do different deals if we were.

We might make deals that are better for the individual countries. I don't care. I want to make whatever the best deal is for this country, and also very much with Canada. in mind. Trump signed the USMCA in 2020 after a prolonged renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It comes up for a review in 26, and the Trump administration recently kicked off that process by asking American companies and labor unions for input on the deal. Trump officials have recently floated breaking the three-way deal into bilateral packs.

Coming up, do you speak Gen Z? Brands are spending millions in an effort to reach young people. That's after the break. Today's teens and 20-somethings have grown up streaming media on their phones, ordering food on apps, and using ride shares. Now, some have had enough. Driven by a desire to escape screens and reclaim a sense of control, they're resurrecting digital cameras, flip phones, and CDs. Meanwhile, brands desperate to connect with Gen Z are fueling a bunch of. boom in the business of Gen Z Translation. Gen Z, now roughly 13 to 28 years old, is coming of spending age. According to market research firms Nielsen IQ, GFK, and World Data Lab, Gen Z's

spending power will grow to $12.6 trillion globally in 2030, from $9.8 trillion in 2024. For more, I'm joined now by Katie Dayton, who covers marketing and advertising for the journal. Katie, this isn't the first time that companies have been desperate to connect with youth, of course, they're always trying to do it. What makes Gen Z different than previous generations? The challenge that brands are having with Gen Z is the proliferation of media that they consume. Gen Z is pretty much everywhere and the platforms themselves have grown in scope and the amount of channels on each of them have grown. And keeping up with all of those places where they might be is just something that brands don't have the capacity to do themselves right now.

So enter the Gen Z translation organization. Who are they who runs them? And what do they actually do? It's quite a breadth of different kinds of companies. Some of them are very focused on research. And some of them are pretty much really plugged in to the zeitguise, following these trends. And some of them are coming out of like very well-established marketing companies. And then we've got the likes of talent agencies like UTA.

they're buying up these smaller Gen Z-focused agencies. So they're all quite small for now. They're all either subsidiaries or their startups and very much capitalizing on the CMO anxiety around messing up with this generation, who are, of course, very vocal when they think that companies or corporations are doing something wrong.

And how is Gen Z responding so far? Do they have a different relationship to brands? The idea of contacting companies for me when I was younger seemed incredibly embarrassing. Gen Z loves to speak to companies. They are on their Instagram feeds. They are engaging with these accounts and they're leaving comments. They write a lot and they give a lot of feedback. And that's one of the good things for companies because as much as Gen Z might seem like they like to cancel companies, they also just want them to listen to them and make them better products and services. That was WSJ reporter, Katie Dayton.

New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange said today it would invest up to $2 billion in crypto-based prediction platform Polymarket. The deal would value the prediction market at roughly $8 billion. Alexander Ossipovich, who covers exchanges and cryptocurrencies for the journal, is here now with more. Alex, why is Intercontinental Exchange interested in polymarket? Intercontinental Exchange is interested in polymarket because prediction markets are having a moment right now amid the 2024 presidential election. A lot of attention was focused on these platforms. In addition to that, the regulatory environment has shifted. Election betting in the U.S. was illegal until recently, and there was a court ruling that essentially allowed it.

And since then, regulated U.S. prediction markets have expanded. into other areas like sports, although this is still a bit controversial. I mentioned in my intro that Polymarket is a crypto-based prediction platform, but how does it actually work, and where does the crypto part come in? To place bets on Polymarket, you use what are called stable coins, and that's a cryptocurrency token that is pegged to the dollar. So essentially, you're betting dollars. They list these contracts that will pay off $1, if you're right,

in the end, or zero, if you're wrong. Because people are trading these things back and forth all the time, the price of the contract tends to reflect what the market thinks is the likely outcome of that event. So if a certain contract is trading for 60 cents, that means people think that it's a 60% chance of that thing will happen. This is a pretty powerful idea, and it's something that economists have talked about since the 1980s, but Pollymarket has done a really good job of actually putting it in practice and attracting customers to it, they are being increasingly closely followed by

investors and analysts. It's become another source of data that we use to understand our world. That was WSJ reporter, Alexander Ossipovich. Thanks, Alex. Thank you for having me. Today, Tesla unveiled its long-promised cheaper model, but the new lower price doesn't quite cover the recently expired $7,500 EV tax credit. The standard Model Y is a stripped-down version of Tesla's best-selling SUV, and it lacks features like vegan leather seats and a screen in the back seat. The new vehicle costs $39,990, making it one of the lowest-pric vehicles for sale in the U.S. and better positioning Tesla to compete globally against low-cost EVs coming out of China.

And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienname and Rodney Davis with supervising producer Michael Cosmides. I'm Alex Osloaf for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.