WSJ What’s News - Selloff Sweeps Global Markets

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

A.M. Edition for Nov. 18. As the market rout hits everything from stocks to crypto, WSJ’s Hannah Miao explains how concerns over missing government data and lofty AI valuations are fueling the downturn. Plus, a House vote on releasing the Epstein files is expected later today, as President Trump’s grip on the GOP seems to be slipping. And companies begin pushing out employees who aren’t using AI in their day to day work. Caitlin McCabe hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A global market sell-off intensifies as investors increasingly worry about an AI bubble. Plus, a house vote on releasing the full Epstein files is expected today. And your boss has a message, use AI or you're fired. In a few cases, we've seen organizations push out individuals who are not using artificial intelligence in their day-to-day work. It's Tuesday, November 18th. I'm Caitlin McCabe 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 global market sell-off is continuing this morning, with major stock indexes sliding across Asia and Europe. U.S. stock futures are pointing lower, and Bitcoin is also declining, falling below 90s. $90,000. Today's performance comes after the S&P 500 yesterday logged its largest three-day percentage decline since April, back when President Trump's trade war sent markets tumbling. This time, though, the culprit is stemming, at least partially from fears that the AI frenzy that sent stocks soaring this year could be overdone. Journal reporter Hannah Miao joins me now from Shanghai to discuss this intensifying market route. Hannah, how bad is it out there? We're seeing a pretty brutal sell-off, not only some of the sharpest decline since April, as you mentioned,

but we also saw the S&P 500 and NASDAQ fall below their 50-day moving averages for the first time in quite some time. And now this is a bit technical, but analysts often look at this as a gauge for where stocks go from here. So the longer-term momentum is now pointing in the negative direction. So it is for telling that there could be more pain ahead, certainly a very volatile period in the markets currently. And so what are investors saying about what's driving this? How much of this is worries about an AI bubble versus other things like shifting expectations over a December interest rate cut? It definitely seems like this reconsideration of the AI boom is a big part of this. we're seeing investors take another look at a lot of the announced investments and building out

AI infrastructure, realizing that a lot of it is being funded by debt, and wondering if the revenue that ultimately AI brings matches up with the money that's being spent in this sector, as there is a consideration of whether this is a bubble and investors are starting to sell these assets, a lot of these stocks are also moving in tandem downward. And we actually saw the CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Sunder Pichai, told the BBC recently that if the AI bubble were to burst, no company would be immune even his own company, Alphabet. So that just points to some of the worries out there about this massive reconsideration of the AI boom

and how it could impact the broader tech sector. We've also been flying blind a bit in terms of economic data because of the government shutdown investors haven't really had the regular economic releases that have been providing a temperature check for how the broader economy is doing. So now that we're expecting to get some of that government data coming in again, the September jobs report is coming out on Thursday, that is also leading to some worries about the broader economic situation and whether that matches up with how high the stock market has been flying this year. And Hannah, lastly, it's not just stocks that are being hit, right? What else

are we seeing investors selling or buying right now? Yes, we've also seen Bitcoin take a hit. Bitcoin can often be correlated with some of these moves in the tech sector. It's seen as a risk asset, so can kind of correlate with risk appetite. And we're also seeing that Wall Street's Fear gauge, as it's called the volatility index, has also been at some of the highest levels since April. So generally, we're seeing a lot of uncertainty out there, volatility, even gold has taken a hit. So it's been a pretty widespread. And we've seen this also hit Asian stock markets, European as well. So we're definitely seeing investors overall reconsider the current market moment. Well, it seems like there's a lot to watch out there this morning. That's journal reporter

Hannah Meow. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. And if you're searching for clues on how the U.S. economy is performing and what that could mean for your investments, check out the third episode of our Economic Indicator series. In it, we take a look at heavy truck sales and what clues they can give us on growth. That special episode is in your feed now, wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up, AI is coming for your job, but not the way you thought. That story and more after the break. A House vote on the Justice Department releasing its Epstein files is expected today after President Trump, despite his initial efforts, failed to block the vote. Potentially dozens of Republicans are expected to vote in support of the men.

measure in a sign that Trump's influence within the GOP is showing some signs of weakening. In a dramatic turnabout Sunday, Trump said he encouraged Republicans to vote for the measure and then said yesterday he would sign legislation to release the files if the measure passes in the House and Senate. We've done a great job. And I hate to see that deflect from the great job we've done. So I'm all for it. You know, we've already given 50,000 pages. You do know that. In the meantime, fallout over Epstein is continuing outside of Washington after more than 20,000 emails from the late sex offender were made public by House Oversight Committee lawmakers last week. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said yesterday he would be stepping back from public commitments after his communication with Epstein was detailed in last week's email dump.

Being mentioned in the emails isn't an indication of wrongdoing. Summers, who is a Harvard University professor, said he, he would fulfill his teaching obligations. But he added that he was deeply ashamed of his actions and said he takes full responsibility for his, quote, misguided decision to continue communicating with Epstein. Earlier Monday, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, who is a longtime critic of Summers, urged Harvard to cut ties with him. Harvard didn't return a request for comment. President Trump has said the U.S. would sell F-35 jet fighters to Saudi Arabia, comments that come ahead of his meeting with Crown Prince

Muhammad bin Salman at the White House later today. After Israel, Saudi Arabia will become the only other Middle Eastern country to have the advanced fighters once deliveries are made. Journal reporter Elliott Brown says that is causing concern in Washington. Historically, the F-35s have been reserved for our absolute closest allies, and it's really largely NATO countries and a handful of others. And in the Middle East, there's this delicate geopolitical balance where Israel has the jets and use them to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. But if you give them to Saudi, then there's concern that it would erode Israel's military advantage in the Middle East. And that's a longstanding policy in U.S. law. And at the same time, there's also concern over leveraging the ability of

Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalize relations with the Abraham Accords. The U.S. is really wanted that. And if you give Saudi the Jets now, then you're lacking one more tool in the toolbox to convince them to normalize relations. And Elliott says the deal marks a clear sign that Saudi Arabia's de facto leader has been rehabilitated in the eyes of the White House after the kingdom's role in the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump has long been close to Saudi Arabia. It was the first big foreign trip in his first term and his second term. There's other things on the docket. One top priority of the kingdom is to get approvals to get cutting-edge AI chips, something the UAE is still negotiating. And those are the invidia chips and other top chips that

are, again, reserved for allies. And, you know, one issue here is that the Saudis would need to spend a ton of money to actually buy the chips. And it's not really clear that they have the amount of money on the scale that they've been talking about. The visit of MBS to Washington comes after the UN Security Council voted to back President Trump's Middle East peace plan yesterday, after some backroom diplomacy by top Trump officials and U.S. allies. Only Russia and China abstained in passing the resolution, which forms the central plank of the Trump administration's plans for peace in Gaza following the two-year Israel-Hamas war.

The resolution sets up the legal mandate for an international stabilization force and lays the groundwork for a new transitional government in Gaza through a so-called Board of Peace that would initially oversee Gaza's reconstruction. It also cites a possible path forward for Palestinian statehood, but only if the right conditions are in place following reconstruction, including reforms to the Palestinian Authority. And as the artificial intelligence craze continues to consume corporate America, it's becoming clear that the prevailing concern for most workers is the fear of being replaced by AI. And while AI is costing some workers their jobs, it seems it's mostly when employees aren't embracing the technology fast enough to augment their work. Reporter Lindsay Ellis covers the workplace and careers for the journal.

A lot of companies have integrated these required trainings on AI, digging into really practical skills, and also, sharing knowledge of how are you using this and sort of having a brainstorm session among employees. But when it comes down to it, they also are using both sticks and carrots to make sure that their employees are in fact using this tech, that it's not just something that you attend a one-off training and then you never open that tab again. So you have some companies that are incentivizing early adopters with cash price, or with plum assignments, other companies are saying, this is going to be part of your performance

evaluation. And in a few cases, we've seen organizations push out individuals who are not using artificial intelligence in their day-to-day work. A recent Gallup survey found that more than 40% of U.S. workers who don't use AI say the main reason is they don't believe it can help. A smaller share, 11% said their primary driver was that they did not want to change how they worked. For more on the adoption or resistance to AI in the American workforce, check out Lindsay's interview on the latest episode of Tech News Briefing. We've also left a link to her reporting in our show notes. And that's it for What's News for this Tuesday morning.

Today's show is produced by Daniel Bach, Kate Bullivant, and Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal. tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.