The Wall Street Journal
WSJ:
What’s News
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2026
2/5/2026 4:56:00 PMShare This Episode
Crypto’s Long, Hard Fall This Winter
この冬、暗号資産が経験した長く厳しい下落
P.M. Edition for Feb. 5. Even as stocks have been on a tear in recent months, the price of bitcoin has fallen, today closing below $64,000, its lowest level in more than a year. Journal reporter Vicky Ge Huang talks about why investors seem to have soured on bitcoin and crypto. Plus, the latest batch of Epstein files has led to political pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and led Brad Karp, leader of the law firm Paul Weiss, to step down as chair of the firm. We hear from WSJ national legal affairs reporter Erin Mulvaney about what his resignation means for Paul Weiss. And the government’s January jobs report may be delayed because of the government shutdown, but other sources of data indicate it probably wasn’t a great month for the labor market. Alex Ossola hosts.
- long, hard fall /lɔːŋ hɑːrd fɔːl/ 長く厳しい下落
- on a tear /ɑːn ə tɛr/ 絶好調で
❌ tear（涙） /tɪr/
❌ tear（破る） /tɛr/（名詞・動詞）
ではなくて、
👉 「猛烈な勢い」「突進」「止まらない動き」名詞 tear（/tɛr/）
to tear along
👉 全速力で突っ走る
The car tore along the highway.
to go on a tear
👉 勢いが止まらない状態に入る
- even as ~ /ˈiːvən æz/ 〜である一方で
- close below ~ /kloʊz bɪˈloʊ/ 〜を下回って引ける
- lowest level /ˈloʊɪst ˈlɛvl/ 最低水準
- sour on ~ /ˈsaʊər ɑːn/ 〜に嫌気がさす
- latest batch /ˈleɪtɪst bætʃ/ 最新の一連の資料
- political pressure /pəˈlɪtɪkəl/ 政治的圧力
- step down /stɛp daʊn/ 辞任する
- chair of the firm /tʃɛr/ 会長職
- legal affairs /ˈliːɡl/ 司法・法務問題
- government shutdown /ˈʃʌtdaʊn/ 政府閉鎖
- indicate /ˈɪndɪkeɪt/ 示唆する
Alex Ossola: Bitcoin hits its lowest price in more than a year. What's driving its fall?
Vicky Ge Huang: That's the narrative. That it's supposed to be this digital gold that it would perform better than gold, but the reality is that it just has not acted like a hedge against inflation and has underperformed gold.
Alex Ossola: Plus, big tech companies like Google and Meta plan to spend billions on AI this year. Investors are having mixed feelings and the latest batch of Epstein Files shakes up UK politics and an elite US law firm.
It's Thursday, February 5th. I'm Alex Ossola 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.
Big tech companies are announcing big AI spending plans. Meta said last week that it would spend up to $135 billion on capital expenditures this year. And yesterday, Google parent Alphabet said it was planning to spend as much as $185 billion, about double last year. Investors have their doubts. WSJ Heard on the Street columnist Dan Gallagher joins me now with more. Dan, I just laid out these eye-popping numbers for capex spending this year. Is it all going to the building out of AI?
- build out = 拡張・本格整備する
Dan Gallagher: Well, most of it is, yes. Especially with Google and what they said on their earnings call is like, yeah, the bulk of it goes to essentially the AI infrastructure and a lot of it goes to, specifically, the chips and the servers to power that.
Alex Ossola: Why do these companies feel the need to do this? What is the competitive pressure here?
- competitive pressure /kəmˈpɛtətɪv ˈprɛʃər/
競争圧力
Dan Gallagher: They're in a race to build up AI services, get as much market share, getting users really accustomed to their AI platforms. So for Google, they have Gemini. Gemini competes with ChatGPT and Claude and these other kind of AI models. Google wants as many users as they can using Gemini. So they're going to build and invest in that because you need the AI infrastructure to power that and to grow the services.
Google wants as many users as they can using Gemini.
as many users using Gemini as they can ← この形もOK
文法的には正しい
ただし 重い・不自然になりやすい
※ ただし長くなるので、実際は後ろに出しがち
as many + 名詞 + as 主語 can ＋ 名詞修飾を後ろに出す
as many users as they can on the platform
as many customers as possible in Asia
as many investors as they can interested in AI
Alex Ossola: So how are investors responding to the announcements of all of this spending? I mean, obviously there's been some investor concern about AI spending overall over the past few months, but as you said, it could be critical to some of these companies' central functions. So what's the verdict there?
- be critical to ~ /bi ˈkrɪtɪkəl tuː/ 〜にとって極めて重要である
- central functions /ˈsɛntrəl ˈfʌŋkʃənz/ 中核的な機能
- what’s the verdict? /wʌts ðə ˈvɜːrdɪkt/ 結論は？最終判断は？
Dan Gallagher: Honestly, it's mixed because it depends on the day you ask that question. We saw last week when Meta announced, they put out this really big capex number, this projection, but they also had really strong results and it was pretty clear AI was helping that business go up, and so you saw the stock go up. With Google, with Alphabet, you're seeing kind of the opposite. The business is still strong. It's like they showed a similar acceleration in their business and they put out a big capex number, but in the market reaction afterwards, everyone's more keen on the capex number. The other difference between the two is Meta stock was way down before their earnings report because there was some other concerns about them and Google's has been up. A lot. And then you've had this week, kind of this general overall worry about AI disruption, what AI could do to all these traditional tech companies, and that feeds into it as well.
- capex number /ˈkæpɛks/ 設備投資額
- projection /prəˈdʒɛkʃən/ 予測
Alex Ossola: That was WSJ Heard on the Street columnist, Dan Gallagher. Thanks so much, Dan.
Dan Gallagher: Thank you for having me.
Alex Ossola: Reporting after the bell, Amazon said its sales rose in the most recent quarter. And the company said it expected capital expenditures of $200 billion in 2026 because, like its rivals, it's also picking up its spending on AI. For more on Amazon's earnings, visit wsj.com.
The government shutdown delayed the release of the labor department's official January jobs report. So it'll be out next week rather than tomorrow. But a bunch of other reports are signaling that the labor market got off to a rough start this year. Some of those are other government reports like the Labor Department one on job openings. Those fell in December to their lowest level since 2020. Other indicators are gloomy too. An estimate out today from Revelio Labs, a workforce data company said the US lost more than 13,000 jobs in January. And Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracks layoffs, said companies announced more than 108,000 job cuts last month, the highest level for January in more than a decade.
Those concerns about the health of the US labor market as well as worries about the tech sector again weighed on stocks today. The three major indexes each fell more than 1% with the Nasdaq posting the biggest loss and closing down 1.6%, extending its worst route since April's tariff crash.
- extending its worst rout /ɪkˈstɛndɪŋ ɪts wɜːrst raʊt/ 最悪の下落をさらに拡大して
rout （名詞）/raʊt/ 大敗／総崩れ／暴落
And today Bitcoin fell below $64,000 trading at its lowest levels since October 2024. That might come as a surprise to some who thought there would be a golden age for crypto under a friendly Trump administration. Bitcoin hit a record high above $126,000 in October. But in the months since, traders seem to have lost their appetite for crypto. For more on what's driving the decline, I'm joined now by Journal reporter, Vicky Ge Huang. Vicky, in recent months, stocks have hit records and so have safe haven assets like gold and silver, but Bitcoin has been on the decline. What's going on there?
Vicky Ge Huang: Yeah, so Bitcoin has actually been a bear market since late last year. The crypto market has been experiencing thin liquidity where there just hasn't been as much demand, whether from individual investors or institutional investors for digital assets. And then coming into the new year, investors have been rotating out of tech stocks and in tandem with that, investors are rotating out of Bitcoin. So it has been under further pressure in recent days because of that rotation and macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties.
Alex Ossola: So on a strategic level, how do investors think about Bitcoin? Do they think of it like gold and silver like a safe haven investment or do they treat it more like a tech stock?
Vicky Ge Huang: Historically, Bitcoin has acted like a sort of highly leveraged tech stock. It's been trading like a speculative asset where it's super volatile. The industry has pitched it as a safe haven, a store of value that hedge against inflation. That's the narrative that it's supposed to be this digital gold that it would perform better than gold, but the reality is that it just has not acted like a hedge against inflation and it has underperformed gold.
- highly leveraged /ˈhaɪli ˈlɛvərɪdʒd/ 高レバレッジの
- speculative asset /ˈspɛkjəˌleɪtɪv ˈæsɛt/ 投機的資産
- super volatile /ˈsuːpər ˈvɑːlətl/ 非常に価格変動が激しい
- pitch A as B /pɪtʃ/ AをBとして売り込む
- safe haven /seɪf ˈheɪvən/ 安全資産
- store of value /stɔːr əv ˈvæljuː/ 価値の保存手段
Alex Ossola: Crypto has been on the downswing here. What would it take to turn things around?
Vicky Ge Huang: So a lot of crypto investors are saying that this is kind of the strangest crypto bear market in the entire history of the industry because in the past crypto winters, what happened was that there would be a big scandal, a big hack into exchange or the collapse of a prominent industry company that would usher in this collapse in prices. However, this time, it seems like a lot of Wall Street institutions are still adopting crypto or integrating crypto into their systems such as Fidelity, introducing their own stablecoin, or Wall Street firms are continuing to launch new crypto or digital assets funds for investors to invest in them. So it seems like some investors believe that as long as this Wall Street adoption continues, eventually the market might bounce back slowly, but it would probably take a year or two years for that to happen.
Alex Ossola: That was Wall Street Journal reporter, Vicky Ge Huang. Thanks, Vicky.
Vicky Ge Huang: Thank you, Alex.
Alex Ossola: And a merger between Rio Tinto and Glencore is off after the mining company's abandoned talks. The deal would've formed the world's largest mining company with a market value of more than $200 billion.
Coming up, how the latest round of Jeffrey Epstein emails took down the leader of one of the most prominent law firms in the US. That's after the break.
Last week, the Justice Department began releasing what it says is the final batch of files related to its investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. And some of the people who appear to have ties to the disgraced financier are feeling the effects. One of those people is Brad Karp, who for the past 18 years has been the leader of Paul Weiss, one of the country's biggest law firms. Yesterday, Karp resigned as the firm's chair after new revelations about his association with Epstein. For more on Karp and the impact of his resignation, I'm joined now by WSJ National Legal Affairs reporter, Erin Mulvaney. Erin, Brad Karp is a huge figure in the legal world. What is he known for?
Erin Mulvaney: So his reputation is one of a very charismatic, dynamic leader. He's really transformed during his time as leader, Paul Weiss, from largely known as a litigation shop with very important high profile litigation to one of the major players in the mergers and acquisition space. It's just one of the most elite law firms in the world, and he's been at the helm of it for 18 years. The client work he does has risen his profile, made him a very important member of the industry for years.
Alex Ossola: So what happened inside the firm after the revelations in the Epstein emails came out?
Erin Mulvaney: The recent batch of Epstein emails showed that he had corresponded with them months before his death, talking about some plea agreements. And previously he had attended dinners with him and asked for his son to have a job on a Woody Allen set. There were just things that stood out that I think drew a lot of media attention that the partners felt like they couldn't really ignore. And there was a meeting among a small group that came to the consensus that it was best that Karp stepped down as chair. And so yesterday they said, "Brad, you're going to need to step down." And the understanding was I think it was a hard decision. He apparently, according to our reporting, was taken aback, but wanted to do what was best for the firm.
- came to the consensus /keɪm tuː ðə kənˈsɛnsəs/ 合意に達した
- step down as chair /stɛp daʊn æz tʃɛr/ 議長を辞任する
- taken aback /ˈteɪkən əˈbæk/ 驚いた
- do what was best for the firm /duː wʌt wəz bɛst fɔːr ðə fɜːrm/ 会社のために最善を尽く
Alex Ossola: Paul Weiss says Karp plans to stay on as a partner, but what does his resignation as chair mean for the firm and its dealings with Wall Street?
Erin Mulvaney: It's worth saying who is replacing him. Scott Barshay. He basically has all the corporate dealings at Paul Weiss. So my understanding is he has a very different personality than Brad Karp, but he also is responsible for a lot of the change as well. They had one of their best years ever last year. They remain a very elite firm. Karp is still remaining on and maintaining his clients as far as we know. It remains to be seen what this shift will mean.
Alex Ossola: That was WSJ reporter, Erin Mulvaney. Thanks, Erin.
Erin Mulvaney: Thank you so much.
Alex Ossola: In response to the Epstein emails, Paul Weiss had said that Karp never witnessed or participated in any misconduct. And in a statement yesterday, Karp said that, "Recent reporting has created a distraction and placed a focus on him that wasn't in the firm's best interests."
And across the Atlantic, revelations from the Epstein files are threatening Prime Minister Kier Starmer's hold on power. UK lawmakers are questioning why he appointed Peter Mandelson to be Britain's ambassador to Washington. Starmer fired Mandelson last year after emails between Mandelson and Epstein indicated that the two were good friends. Now, newly released files appear to show that Mandelson, while a government official, sent Epstein information that could have allowed him to trade on inside information. British police have said they're investigating whether the emails broke the law. Mandelson hasn't publicly commented on the emails, but has apologized to Epstein's victims.
And President Trump said today that he wants the US to negotiate a new strategic arms treaty with Russia. As we reported on this morning show, the previous one has expired. Many lawmakers have argued that new arms control agreements must include China, which is building up its own nuclear forces. So far, though, China has refused to participate in strategic arms talks. Trump didn't mention China today.
And that's What's News for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienaimé and Alexis Moore with supervising producer, Tali Arbel. I'm Alex Ossola for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.
Tech News Briefing
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2026
2/5/2026 5:06:00 PMShare This Episode
TNB Tech Minute: Nasdaq Slumps Again
TNB テック・ミニット：ナスダックが再び急落
Plus: Amazon to spend $200 billion as it accelerates AI projects. And Nvidia warns the Trump administration that chip export rules to China are too strict. Julie Chang hosts.
- Tech Minute /tɛk ˈmɪnɪt/ 短いテックニュース枠
- Nasdaq slumps again /ˈnæzdæk slʌmps əˈɡɛn/ ナスダックが再び下落する
- slump /slʌmp/ 急落する、低迷する
- Plus: /plʌs/ さらに言えば／加えて
- to spend $200 billion /tə spɛnd tuː ˈhʌndrəd ˈbɪljən/ 2,000億ドルを支出する
- accelerate AI projects /əkˈsɛləreɪt eɪ aɪ ˈprɑːdʒɛkts/ AIプロジェクトを加速させる
- warn A that B /wɔːrn/ AにBだと警告する
- the Trump administration /ðə trʌmp ədˌmɪnɪˈstreɪʃən/ トランプ政権
- chip export rules /tʃɪp ˈɛkspɔːrt ruːlz/ 半導体の輸出規制
- too strict /tuː strɪkt/ 厳しすぎる
- pare losses /pɛr ˈlɔːsɪz/ 下げ幅を縮める
pare = 削る／切り詰める → 損失を削る = 下げ幅を縮める - let up /lɛt ʌp/ 弱まる、和らぐ
let の基本イメージ
「妨げない」「そのままにする」「許す」「コントロールを緩める」 が let の核
let up の let 弱まる・緩む・収まる let = 力を入れるのをやめる
Let us go → Let’s go「（一緒に）〜しよう」 let = 許す
- capital expenditures /ˈkæpɪtl ɪkˈspɛndɪtʃərz/ 設備投資
- capital investments = 何に投資するか
👉 資本投資（広い概念）
👉 お金を長期的な成長のために投じること全般
👉 「どこに投資するか」という戦略・方向性にフォーカス- capital expenditures = いくら使うか
設備投資（会計・決算用語）
👉 実際に「支出した金額」
👉 財務・決算・数字重視
（全部 up ＝ 強まる じゃない）
clean up（完全にきれいにする）
eat up（全部食べ切る）
give up（完全にやめる）
use up（使い切る）
break up（関係が終わる）
👉 up = 終点・区切り
up =「完全に」「区切りまで」「状態の変化が完了」
let up
let = 力を入れ続けない／止めない
up = その状態に「切り替わる」「区切りがつく」
slow up 速度を落とす loosen up 緩める calm down 落ち着く（※ downだけど弱まる） 👉 方向じゃなく 状態変化
The rain finally let up.
The pressure didn’t let up.
👉 主語は人じゃないことが多い