Hi! It's the Most Wonderful Pine of the Year: The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, a 75-foot-tall Norway spruce set to be adorned with 50,000 lights and a 900-pound Swarovski star, was put up on Saturday. Today we're exploring: |
- Here we go again: What another GTA delay means for Take-Two Interactive.
- The bill, please: Prediction markets react as the Senate moves towards ending the federal shutdown.
- New York Pastimes: Paywalling The Mini Crossword might have boosted NYT profits.
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Grand Theft Auto has been a goldmine — this latest delay had better be worth it for investors and gamers |
After more than a decade, Rockstar Games' crown jewel — and one of the highest-grossing video games of all time — just hit the brakes again. Last week, Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar's parent company and the gaming giant behind GTA, Red Dead Redemption, NBA 2K, and more, delayed the release of "Grand Theft Auto VI" to November 2026 — its second pushback this year after initially targeting a 2025 launch. CEO Strauss Zelnick said the extra months will help "finish the game with the high level of polish players expect and deserve." Still, shares fell ~10% on the announcement, even as the company raised its full-year bookings outlook. The delay elongates an already 12-year wait, with fans of the crime-packed franchise going without a new game since September 2013. Though big budget sequels now routinely take 5 years or more to make, GTA's decade-plus hiatus still stands out. But, even as the franchise's share of Take-Two's revenue has thinned, it's still pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. |
Back in 2014, GTA accounted for nearly 70% of Take-Two's sales after GTA V's record-breaking debut. Today, that share is closer to just 13%. The company's portfolio has become "increasingly diversified," as Zelnick recently put it, spanning the NBA 2K sports franchise, Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption series, and Zynga's mobile empire, which Take-Two acquired in 2022. Still, most analysts remain bullish on GTA VI, according to Bloomberg, with some forecasting $2 billion in first-year revenue, as a holiday-season launch will likely boost sales by avoiding the slow summer months. And it wouldn't be the first time Rockstar has chosen quality over punctuality: the studio's last major release, "Red Dead Redemption 2" (2018), took 8 years to make but raked in $725 million over its opening weekend alone. "It's always painful when we move a date," Zelnick said in the earnings call, "and we've never regretted it in retrospect." |
The Senate just advanced a deal that could end the government shutdown |
The longest government shutdown in US history — so far lasting a full 40 days since funding authorization expired on October 1 — might soon come to an end. On Sunday evening, the Senate announced the advancement of a tentative compromise bill, following a procedural vote that saw a group of Democrats cross party lines to win by a 60-40 margin, reaching exactly the minimum number of votes needed to overcome the filibuster. While this deal marks the first step in finally reopening the government — and keeping it funded until the end of January — there are several more hurdles it needs to clear before we get back to business as usual, including being passed by the Senate and signed off by the House of Representatives. Still, that hasn't stopped prediction market traders from quickly reacting to the news. |
Despite having grown increasingly pessimistic over the last month, traders on the "When will the Government shutdown end?" contract offered by Polymarket are now piling heavily into positions that pay out if the shutdown ends earlier. Indeed, in aggregate, Polymarket data reveals that traders are pricing in the chance of the shutdown ending between November 12 and 15 at 87% as of 5 a.m. ET on Monday, up from ~30% at the end of last week. The implied odds of the shutdown continuing beyond November 16, meanwhile, have plummeted. |
As prediction markets reflect a newfound optimism that the federal closure could soon conclude, Wall Street and global markets have rallied. Seemingly, the stock market and US citizens alike are eagerly awaiting a reopening: a YouGov poll published Friday found that 36% of Americans now say the federal government shutdown is affecting them a great deal or somewhat — up from 21% recorded a month ago. |
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Ripple's RLUSD Stablecoin surpasses $1 billion market cap |
Ripple's RLUSD is one of the fastest-growing stablecoins in the world right now. Its market capitalization has seen more than 10x year-to-date growth (surpassing $1B market cap as of last week) and it's now one of the world's top ten stablecoins by cap.1 But what does the rise of RLUSD mean for global markets? |
RLUSD empowers businesses to level-up on cross-border payments to keep pace with the demands of the globalized digital economy. By enabling near-real time payments and short-term financing solutions like repurchase agreements, stablecoins provide connective tissue between finance and the digital economy — and Ripple has the resources you need to prepare for a stablecoin-enabled future. On Ripple's Block Stars podcast, industry-leader David Schwartz dives into the biggest themes in blockchain technology, for business and beyond. |
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Could paywalling The Mini have made a big difference to the NYT's bottom line last quarter? |
Okay, so we've been saying here that the business behind The New York Times Company hasn't really been just about the news now for a minute. And while that's hardly a fact the Gray Lady herself has shied away from in the past, the observation rings truer with each passing quarter. |
Collections; or _ _ _ _ _ _ _ of joy [7] |
In its Q3 earnings last week, the Times reported that it had added 460,000 digital-only subscribers in the last three months, as bundles and single-product subscribers to products like Cooking and Games helped offset the 130,000 news-only subs it lost over the quarter. For context, there are just ~570,000 print-only NYT subscribers left, after 10,000 jumped ship in the same period. The additions mark the most substantial growth the Times has posted across its digital offerings since it started breaking out individual subscriber figures, rather than the number of individual subscriptions those subscribers paid for, back in 2022, as the company's digital footprint continues to grow. |
All told, The NYT now counts some 12.33 million subscribers across its family of products. The vast majority (11.76 million) of those are for its digital-only products — whether that's people keeping up to date on the NYTimes app, sports fans lapping up analysis from The Athletic, chefs looking for recipe inspo from the Cooking segment, or the millions of people who've chiseled some combination of the company's mini games into their daily routines. In late August, the Times made the controversial move to shield some of those games — including The Mini, a smaller version of the paper's iconic crossword that's built a devoted following since it launched over a decade ago — behind a paywall. While the company didn't break out exactly how many Games subscribers it gained last quarter, it's difficult to imagine a world where the latest digital subscriber figures weren't boosted a little by Mini-mad users finally stumping up some extra cash to carry on playing the crossword every day. |
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- COP30 kicks off in Brazil today — notably, without the US. Take a look at how the global climate has changed since the first summit some 33 years ago.
- Al dente duty: Italian pasta makers are set to be hit by a 92% anti-dumping tariff, on top of the existing 15% tax on imports from the EU, the WSJ reported this morning.
- With Tesla's sales expected to fall in the current quarter, Elon Musk's (mainly) car company is now renting out Teslas starting at $60 a day from select dealerships.
- Kendrick Lamar leads the 2026 Grammy nominations, clinching 9 nods including song, record, and album of the year — the third time he's been nominated for all three of those awards at once.
- Freaky Caesars, martini garnishes, and a hot dog identity crisis… A list of food trends to look out for in 2026, according to The Infatuation.
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Off the charts: Which energy drink giant reported a 40% pop in third-quarter profits last Thursday — but still comes nowhere near Red Bull's pumped up sales? [Answer below]. |
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Advertiser's disclosures: 1 The market cap surpassed $1B on 11/3/25. RLUSD is the tenth largest stablecoin by cap as of 11/4/25. See article for further details. Availability dependent on jurisdiction. RLUSD is issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, a limited purpose trust company chartered by the NYDFS to engage in virtual currency business. Investing involves significant risk, including possible loss of principal. Digital assets are not suitable for an investor that cannot afford the loss of the entire investment. Stablecoins are subject to risk, including depegging, volatility, and run risks. |
Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate... See more |
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