Take-Two Interactive Software shares jumped early in the cash session after the company announced on X that pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI will open next Thursday. The move is easing investor concerns that the highly anticipated game could face another delay, reinforcing expectations that Rockstar Games remains on track for its Nov. 19 launch date.
"Pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI will officially begin on June 25 on digital storefronts and at other select retailers," Rockstar Games wrote on X. The gaming studio is a wholly owned subsidiary of Take-Two.
Pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI will officially begin on June 25 on digital storefronts and at other select retailers.
Check out the official cover art, also available as downloadable artwork at https://t.co/XPwC8URCQ4 pic.twitter.com/pRVXk4eyDQ
The last major GTA release was GTA V, which launched on Sept. 17, 2013. Gamers have been waiting 13 years for a major GTA installment.
Rockstar has upset not just Take-Two investors but also GTA gamers on numerous occasions, indicating that its developers needed more time to finish the game, thereby delaying the launch. The launch date is set for Nov. 19.
Rockstar just gave us the best look yet at non-enterable buildings in GTA VI
It's not a straight up png like in GTA V and other open world games with skyscrapers but at the same time, it doesn't have anywhere near the detail as the rest of the game. What I'm really curious about… https://t.co/Q5ko9Gpawz pic.twitter.com/kVQTiGZ4VR
Take-Two shares are up nearly 6% in the cash session, though the stock has traded mostly sideways since peaking around $262 in October 2025.
Last month, we asked:
BMO Capital Markets analyst Brian Pitz noted, "We highlight that the game's price remains a key question, as the launch of preorders next Friday should confirm base game pricing. We will also closely monitor for any higher-priced SKUs that give players early access to the game. Reiterate our Outperform, Top Pick, and $280 target price."
According to Bloomberg data, 97% of the analyst coverage on TWWO is "Buy" rated with an average 12-month price target of $281.97.
For reference, GTA V sold about 225 million to 230 million copies worldwide.
There is already a report from Oppenheimer analyst Martin Yang that console sales are increasing ahead of the GTA VI release.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/18/2026 - 13:05Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
The Trump administration is going to spent more than $700 million on programs aimed at reducing drug addiction, homelessness, and mental illness, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on June 17.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Washington on May 18, 2026. Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty ImagesThe largest portion of the new funding, nearly $239 million, is going to a lifeline that people who are suicidal can call. Some $223 million is going to community behavioral health clinics. Nearly $100 million is being offered to communities that apply to the Safety Through Recovery, Engagement, and Evidence-based Treatment and Support (STREETS) Program, which provides services for homeless people who are addicted to drugs or have serious mental illness.
The other funds are going to programs targeting the prevention of, treatment for, and recovery from drugs, or programs that support mentally ill people.
"These investments will help move people from the streets into treatment and recovery, strengthen families, save lives, and make communities safer," Kennedy said in a statement.
The funding follows an executive order from President Donald Trump that directed officials to work on shifting homeless people into institutions to help address crime and disorder in the nation's cities, and another order that says the disease of addiction must be stopped through an emphasis on treatment.
"My Administration will drive a new national response to the disease of addiction that will create stronger coordination across government, the healthcare sector, faith communities, and the private sector in order to save lives, restore families, strengthen our communities, and build the Great American Recovery," Trump said in the latter order.
Kennedy on Wednesday visited the Easterseals Michigan-Clinton Township Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic, part of the Easterseals network of facilities that assist people with disabilities, their families and caregivers, and veterans.
"Our goal is to provide comprehensive outpatient mental health and substance use services that are person-centered, trauma-informed and evidence-based," the clinic's website states.
Kennedy said that homelessness is "one of the greatest problems that we have now, health problems in this country" and that it is interconnected with the crisis of drug addiction, which has caused more than 1 million deaths since 2000.
Kennedy said administration officials do not support so-called harm reduction initiatives, such as needle exchanges or "safe injection sites." Instead, the administration is emphasizing treatment.
"Recovery works. Treatment works. Accountability works," he said.
Kennedy did say that the withdrawal drugs Suboxone and methadone work, particularly for addicts who cannot enter treatment at certain times. They are "good bridge solutions," he said.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/18/2026 - 12:45Amazon is in talks to sell its custom-made Trainium AI chips for use in other companies’ data centers, Bloomberg reports, noting this "represents a key expansion of its efforts to cut into Nvidia's dominance", although a less optimistic read is that the company does not have enough demand or capacity to use the chips for its own uses.
Peter DeSantis, Amazon’s AI chief, said the world’s largest cloud computing company has begun discussions but declined to name potential customers. Presumably, it will try to steal market share by offering its product at a much more competitive terms, which suggests more pricing pressure across the AI ecosystem.
“We view AI infrastructure as rapidly evolving,” he said in an interview in Paris. “And we’re constantly looking at ways to get to more customers.”
Introduced in 2020, Amazon’s AI accelerator, Trainium, has won a few marquee buyers, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Uber, which access the hardware via Amazon Web Services. The chip has produced more than $225 billion in revenue commitments, Amazon said in April (for a word of caution about purchase commitments read our discussion on the trillions in off-balance sheet liabilities sloshing inside the AI ecosystem).
That same month, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in his shareholder letter that it’s “quite possible” Amazon would sell racks of its chips to third parties. It was part of a broader attempt to reposition the sprawling company around AI, an area where it’s seen as falling behind rivals.
Amazon and other cloud computing titans have each been developing their own alternatives to Nvidia’s popular graphics processing units — and ramped up these efforts after ChatGPT’s arrival.
While the AI boom has generated soaring cloud sales, it’s also fueled a new crop of specialized AI cloud providers and driven demand for “sovereign” services in Europe and other regions that are subject to local laws and usually locate information and data processing in the host country.
In April, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Google will begin to deliver its Nvidia GPU rival chips, called tensor processing units, to a “select group of customers” for use in their own data centers. Amazon is following suit with Trainium, in part, due to the growing demand outside of the US for computing resources that are controlled locally, according to DeSantis. Alternatively, there is just not enough demand in the US, no matter what the daily bullish propaganda says (because as a reminder, due to the $2 trillion in interlinked off-balance sheet liabilities, the moment one counterparty trips, it will drag down everyone else with it).
Meanwhile, some of that foreign push, particularly in Europe, has prompted calls for countries to lessen their reliance on US technology or drop it altogether. Speaking at the VivaTech conference in France, DeSantis said the AWS business has not been impacted at all by this trend. Yet.
The third version of the Trainium chip, which began shipping earlier this year, is “largely sold out,” he said. Amazon said there’s already strong interest in a fourth version that’s expected to debut next year.
DeSantis dismissed the idea that selling Trainium outside of AWS would eat into the company’s cloud business. “There’s so much underconsumption in AI,” he said. “I’m not worried about it.” But with token prices tumbling, and compute rental costs in free fall, both of which signal a sudden drop in demand (or excess supply) for compute...
Perfect storm: token costs down 20% since start of the month (down 11 of 12 days) , while compute rental prices are at 1 month lows pic.twitter.com/dwIYeyihGx
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 16, 2026... he should be.
The executive also cited growth for Amazon’s Graviton chips, a general-purpose processor that it recently began providing to Meta. Over the last three years, DeSantis said Amazon has added more Graviton chips to its computing systems than any other type of chip.
Amazon shares gained as much as 2.5% on Thursday, reaching an intraday high of $243 on the news.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/18/2026 - 12:25