WSJ What’s News - Risky Bets Amped Up Crypto Gains. Now They’re Fueling Their Selloff.

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

P.M. Edition for Nov. 19. Traders have used debt to maximize their gains as they bought and sold crypto this year—now, with prices dropping, they’re turbocharging losses too. WSJ crypto reporter Vicky Ge Huang tells us what makes those bets so risky. Plus, Target says it will invest billions in its stores as it seeks to turn around slumping sales. And minutes from October’s Federal Reserve meeting show deepening divisions, putting a rate cut at the next meeting in question. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leveraged crypto trades have maximized trader gains, but now they're turbocharging a sell-off. If Bitcoin really jumps, you are very likely to get supercharged returns. However, if Bitcoin falls, even just a little bit, you are going to end up in huge losses or maybe even get your entire position wiped out. Plus, Target says it will invest billions in stores to try to turn around slumping sales. why Medicaid patients are having trouble getting doctors' appointments. It's Wednesday, November 19th. I'm Alex Osala 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. This Just In, NVIDIA, the world's most valuable publicly listed company, reported record sales in its latest quarter and provided strong guidance. For more on NVIDIA's earnings, visit WSJ.com. and we'll have more analysis on tomorrow morning show. Nvidia's latest earnings are one of the key data points for investors concerned about the AI boom and valuations of tech companies, concerns that have weighed on stocks in the past few weeks. Investors are also uncertain about just what the Federal Reserve may do about interest rates at its next meeting in December.

The minutes from the October meeting, which are out today, give some insight. They show that divisions over whether the Fed should cut interest rates next month have deepened. there's potentially a narrow majority of policymakers uncomfortable with cutting rates in December. The minutes show that, quote, many officials thought the rate cut wouldn't be warranted next month, a group bigger than the, quote, several that thought a reduction could be appropriate. President Trump at a speech at an investment forum today said that interest rates were too high

and that he wanted to fire a Fed chair Jerome Powell, but Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has advised against it. He also needleed Besant. The only thing Scott's blowing it on is the Fed. Because the Fed, the rates are too high, Scott, and if you don't get it fixed fast, I'm going to fire your ass, okay? Traders cut bets of a December rate cut to around one in three today, after the Labor Department said October employment data wouldn't be published until after the Fed's meeting.

Investors appear to conclude that without additional jobs data, Fed officials would be less likely to back a December cut. The three major stock indexes, ended higher today. The NASDAQ led gains, closing up 0.6%. The S&P and the Dow each broke four session losing streaks. One big part of this market action over the past few weeks has been crypto, which many investors consider a riskier trade. The rally in crypto prices this year was fueled by debt. Traders amped up their gains using leverage, for example, putting down $1 of their own money to gain exposure to $100 of Bitcoin. Now, a punishing sell-off over the past two weeks is exposing the dangers of those bets.

It was a brutal weekend for crypto. Bitcoin sank below $93,000 on Sunday. It's lowest level since April. The cryptocurrency has struggled to meaningfully recover since a flash crash on October 10th when President Trump reignited his trade war with China. Since its all-time high of more than $126,000 hit on October 6th, Bitcoin has fallen more than 25%.

Vicky Gowang, who covers crypto for the journal, says that one of the popular ways that traders make these bets is through contracts called perpetual futures. You can bet on the price of a token to go up or go down continuously without ever having to close out the contract. So unlike traditional futures contract where you have a settlement date, you can keep that contract open forever theoretically. And the biggest risk comes from the amount of leverage that you can use. So right now in the U.S., on Coinbase, you can access up to 10 times of leverage. But overseas on some of the exchanges there, you can access up to 100 times of leverage.

So that can really ramp things up very quickly. So if Bitcoin really jumps, you are very likely to get supercharged returns. However, if Bitcoin falls, even just a little bit, you are going to end up in huge losses or maybe even get your entire position wiped out. So it kind of works like a double-edged sword. Vicki adds that some of the same things that are weighing on investors of traditional stocks could also keep driving crypto prices down. We've seen a lot of investors pulling money from Bitcoin exchange traded funds

and a lot of early Bitcoin holders who are called whales. Those holding a lot of Bitcoin have also been cashing out recently. The other worry is that if the Federal Reserve doesn't cut interest rate in December, that could also really affect Bitcoin prices. Target plans to invest billions of dollars in its stores as it tries to fix its saleslump. Here's incoming CEO Michael Fidelke, speaking on a call with analysts this morning. If you're frustrated with our recent performance, we are too, and our entire team is working incredibly hard to return to growth and live up to our full potential.

Fidelke said Target wants to improve the customer experience in its stores, and it's merchandise. It's also investing in better technology and e-commerce systems. In recent years, shoppers have complained about messy stores, items missing on shelves, and products that weren't exciting. The company said today that fewer shoppers visited its stores in its most recent quarter, and that shoppers who did come spent less. Sales in the third quarter fell one and a half percent, and the company cut its profit outlook for the year. Target shares fell 2.8 percent today, leaving shares down by about a third for the year. And where exclusively reporting that McKinsey named 224 people as partners, one of the smallest classes in recent

years. Numbers of new partners have been coming down from the pandemic years as the consulting firm looks to tighten its leadership ranks and change how it's managed. Larry Summers has resigned from the Board of OpenAI after communications between him and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were made public last week. Summer says he's grateful for the opportunity to have served and looks forward to following OpenA.I. A's progress. Summers is a former Treasury Secretary and a former president of Harvard University, where he still teaches. Harvard says it's conducting a review of the interactions with Epstein. Coming up, Medicaid insurers make it seem like there are lots of doctors

available. So why is it so hard for patients to see one? That's after the break. In Ukraine, Kiev says it used long-range missiles supplied by the U.S. to strike Russian territory. It's the first time Ukraine has acknowledged deploying the systems known as attackums since President Trump lifted restrictions on their use last month. U.S. officials didn't immediately confirm the weapons use. But the move suggests that the U.S., which vetoed such attacks when Trump returned to office, is now willing to authorize them and provide the targeting intelligence that they rely on. The strikes come as Trump has sent Pentagon officials to Ukraine for talks towards

ending the war. For many Americans, it can be hard to see a doctor, no matter what kind of health insurance you have. Take my recent search for a pediatric dentist. The handful of names my insurance sent me don't actually take my insurance. For the more than 70 million low-income and disabled Americans on Medicaid, that can be even worse. On the websites of private insurance companies that provide Medicaid coverage, it can look

like there are plenty of providers. But when patients go to actually book appointments, they can't get them. For more on insurers' unfulfilled promise, I'm joined now by Anna Wealdi Matthews, who covers health insurance for the journal. Anna, you say researchers call this problem a ghost network. So insurers say there are providers available, but there actually aren't. Why can't Medicaid patients get appointments? What's going on here? We did a data analysis. When we looked at the networks that the Medicaid insurers had on paper, the ones that sort of they promised to people. We found significant shares of the physicians who were listed actually had not seen a single one of that insurers Medicaid patients in the year we looked at 2023. And it seems to imply that

you have doctors who are listed, but who effectively are not available for various reasons. What are some of those reasons? What we found is that in some cases, it just seems to be there are some errors. Maybe a physician is listed as being in a place, but he or she actually hasn't been in that place in five years, but they still appear in the listing. And then there will be doctors who are listed, but they just don't seem to really be available if you're calling and you have Medicaid coverage. Some physicians may be in those networks and listed, but they limit the number of slots. They make available to Medicaid patients or they limit the number of Medicaid patients they're willing to see. And in fairness, what the physicians say,

is that if you're running a practice and you need to make a living, the Medicaid pay is just a lot lower than other kinds of pay that they get to see patients. What do patients do if they can't get in to see these doctors? One particular area that came up again and again was children who were potentially had autism but needed to see a certain specialist to get diagnosed in a treatment plan put in place. Patients would be waiting many months and even potentially years for that specialty visit. partly, frankly, because those specialists are often overwhelmed by Medicaid and all patients. And what did Medicaid insurers say about this?

What Medicaid insurers say is that they do everything they can to keep their network information accurate and up to date and that they try to ensure that the doctors who are listed in their networks are in fact seeing patients. They also say that they meet the requirements of the state governments who pay them, and that there are a lot of factors around these kinds of things. That was WSJ reporter, Anna Wieldy Matthews. Thank you, Anna. Thanks. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. There's a little treat in your feed, the last episode of our Economic Indicator series. It's about liquor and what the growing sales

of small bottles show us about how consumers are feeling. That's in the what's news feed just before this episode. Today's show was produced by Pierre Biennamee and Zoe Colkin, with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Alex Oscella for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.