Welcome to the Globe and Mail Business and Investment News Quiz. Join us every week to test your knowledge on the stories that make the headlines. Our business reporters will think of the questions, so show us what you know.
this week: The season of earning continued. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board reported a return of 3.4% in its most recent quarter. At the end of 2023, the company had nearly $591 billion in assets, up from $576 billion at the end of the previous quarter. Meanwhile, Toronto-based Restaurant Brands International (RBI) on Tuesday reported that its fourth-quarter net profit more than doubled to US$726 million from US$336 million a year earlier. Additionally, Canadian Tire Corporation reported that its fourth quarter net income fell by 67.6%.
Also: The audit brought some sharp words, the Amazon founder raised some eyebrows, and the Lyft sparked (brief) excitement.
1“This audit shows a clear disregard for basic management and contract practices.” Who said that this week?
a.Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poièvre
b. Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie
c. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
d. Karen Horgan, Auditor General of Canada
d. Karen Horgan, Auditor General of Canada. Horgan accused Canada Border Services Agency of sloppy development of the ArriveCan app during the pandemic. The agency spent just $80,000 creating an initial version of the smartphone app, but the cost subsequently ballooned to an estimated $59.5 million as a result of poorly documented contracts with private developers and consultants.
2Canadian e-commerce company Shopify announced earnings this week that beat analysts' expectations. What happened to that stock?
a.It went up
b. barely swayed
c. fell a little
d. plummeted
d. It plummeted. Shopify's stock price fell 13% despite double-digit sales growth and impressive profit margins. Investors were unimpressed with the outlook for the coming months.
3What is Sunday Red?
a.Tiger Woods' new clothing line
b. An album of pop songs by Travis Kelsey, the football player who is dating Taylor Swift.
c. New TV series in which China uses a mirror placed in space to threaten the world with the annihilation of the sun
d. Meta Platforms Virtual Reality Software Code Name
a. Tiger Woods' new clothing line. Woods ended his 27-year partnership with Nike earlier this year. The golfer is partnering with TaylorMade Golf to develop a new line.
FourWhy did ride-hailing service Lyft's stock soar by more than 60% at one point this week?
a.Rumors of merger with Uber
b. Typo in financial results announcement
c. Reports that Warren Buffett is buying stocks
d. Temporary contract with driver
b. Typo in financial results announcement. Oops. The typo indicated that Lyft's profit margins were expected to rise by 500 basis points over the next year. (A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.) The actual forecast is an increase of 50 basis points.
FiveBitcoin price reached $50,000 this week. That is:
a. Highest price in over 2 years
b. Lowest price in over a year
c. Record high
d. Half of the transaction amount one year ago
a. It was the highest price in about two years. Bitcoin prices soared after U.S. regulators gave the green light to Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
6What was the average Tim Hortons restaurant's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) this year?
a. $110,000
b. $230,000
c. $280,000
d. $340,000
c. 280,000 dollars. Tim Hortons franchisees increased EBITDA by 27% in 2023 to an average of $280,000 per restaurant. However, this is still less than the $320,000 in EBITDA that a typical store generated in 2018.
7What has Amazon founder Jeff Bezos done in recent days to raise eyebrows?
a.remarriage
b. Bought shares in the New York Times.
c. Sold billions of dollars worth of Amazon stock.
d. blown into space
c. He sold billions of dollars worth of Amazon stock. Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon's chief executive in 2021 to devote more time to other projects, said he intends to sell his shares with an estimated market value of $8.4 billion.
8Jake Lawrence, Head of Global Banking and Markets at Bank of Nova Scotia, is retiring after more than 20 years and joins:
a.canadian power company
b. Royal Bank of Canada
c. Manulife
d. Citibank
a. Canadian Power Company. Lawrence was once considered a top candidate for Scotiabank. He is currently believed to be in the running to become Power's chief executive officer.
9Which two countries went into recession this week? (For our purposes, a recession is defined as a contraction in output for two consecutive quarters.)
a.canada and france
b. UK and Japan
c. Spain and Italy
d. United States and Mexico
b. England and Japan. Japan and the UK are both currently in recession.
TenA recent report from credit union hub Alberta Central crunches the numbers on housing affordability in Canada. Assuming interest rates remain where they are, how much does the report calculate that home prices across the country would have to fall, on average, to become affordable again?
a. 10 percent
b. 20 percent
c. 30 percent
d. 40 percent
d. 40 percent. If an immediate 40% drop isn't attractive, the alternatives aren't much better. The report also estimates that the market could regain balance after a decade or more of stagnation in home prices.
11What is the approximate average annual return generated by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board over the past 10 years?
a. less than 2 percent
b. Approximately 5 percent
c. Approximately 9 percent
d. about 11 percent
c. It's about 9%. CPPIB, which helps Canadians fund their pensions, reported this week that returns have averaged 9.3% a year over the past 10 years.
12Which notable company overtook Google's parent company Alphabet to become the third-largest U.S. company by stock market value this week?
a. AI PioneerOpenAI
b. Chip maker Nvidia
c. Major social media meta platform
d. Weight loss drug maker Novo Nordisk
b. Chip maker Nvidia. NVIDIA is soaring as technology companies race to incorporate AI into their products and services. Nvidia controls about 80% of the high-end AI chip market.
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