Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making the headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week in business and investing: Laurentian Bank’s profit fell in its fourth quarter, driven by a system outage in September and restructuring costs tied to a turnaround plan. Meanwhile, Alphabet’s share price soared after Google’s parent company launched Gemini, its new artificial-intelligence model. Consumers’ eyebrows shot almost as high as Alphabet’s shares after McDonald’s unveiled its new small-format restaurant, dubbed CosMc’s.
Meanwhile, media – both old and new – struggled, investments – both old and new – soared and a study confirmed that your grocery bill really is going up.
Do you remember these stories? Take our quiz below to test your recall for the week ending Dec. 8
1Bitcoin is hot! It hit US$43,000 this week, which is:
a. More than double its price in January
b. More than triple its price in January
c. 10-per-cent higher than its price in January
d. 50-per-cent higher than its price in January
a. More than double its price in January. Bitcoin, which has a history of soaring then crashing, has more than doubled in price this year.
2Gold is hot! This week the price of bullion hit a record high in U.S. dollars. Over the past three years, the yellow metal has:
a. Gained about 12 per cent in value
b. Gained about 25 per cent in value
c. Gained about 30 per cent in value
d. Gained about 40 per cent in value
a. Gained about 12 per cent in value. Gold briefly traded above US$2,100 an ounce this week. It is up strongly over the past five years but has managed only modest gains over the past three years.
3Bond rater Moody’s downgraded the credit outlook for which country this week?
a. Canada
b. United States
c. Germany
d. China
d. China. Moody’s downgrade reflects growing evidence that Chinese authorities will have to provide more support for heavily indebted local governments and state firms.
4The federal agency responsible for preventing money laundering and terrorism in Canada imposed its largest fine in history this week. Which financial institution did it penalize?
a. Toronto-Dominion Bank
b. Royal Bank of Canada
c. Manulife Financial
d. Bank of Montreal
b. Royal Bank of Canada. The agency said it imposed “by far the largest penalty we’ve ever levied” on Royal Bank of Canada for administrative violations.
5You’re not the only one who has had to wait on hold for 45 minutes to get a simple tax question answered. How many full-time employees now work at Canada Revenue Agency’s call centres compared to the number back in 2015-16?
a. Roughly the same number
b. 50-per-cent more
c. 50-per-cent fewer
d. Double
d. Double. The number of full-time employees at CRA call centres has doubled to 5,610 this year from 2,651 in 2015-16.
6Let’s stay with that tax thing: How does the number of complaints from disgruntled taxpayers in the most recent year compare to the number of complaints back in 2015-16?
a. Roughly the same
b. 45-per-cent fewer
c. 45-per-cent higher
d. Double
c. 45-per-cent higher. Complaints to the federal Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson have jumped 45 per cent from pre-pandemic levels.
7Old media has its challenges. Which well-known magazine said this week that it will end its Canadian edition in 2024 after 76 years of publication?
a. Reader's Digest
b. Time Magazine
c. Rolling Stone
d. The Economist
a. Reader's Digest. The magazine said the Canadian edition faced declining ad sales and increased production and delivery costs.
8New media also has its issues. Which well-known online company announced this week that it was laying off nearly a fifth of its staff?
a. Shopify
b. Spotify
c. TikTok
d. Meta Platforms
b. Spotify. Spotify laid off about 1,500 employees, or 17 per cent of its workforce. The U.S.-listed shares of the music-streaming service jumped on the news.
9Guns may be bad for your portfolio. Who sued the board of Smith & Wesson this week in an attempt to force the U.S. gun maker to stop producing assault-style rifles?
a. Greenpeace
b. Catholic nuns
c. Families of shooting victims
d. The American Medical Association
b. Catholic nuns. A group of Catholic nuns filed the suit in Nevada, alleging that Smith & Wesson’s management is exposing the company to significant liability by failing to respond to lawsuits over mass shootings.
10Smoking could also hurt your financial health. This week British American Tobacco acknowledged the long-term problems in the cigarette market by:
a. Setting aside US$31.5-billion to settle legal claims
b. Agreeing to spend US$31.5-billion on anti-smoking advertisements
c. Reducing its revenue projections over the next five years by US$31.5-billion
d. Writing down the value of some of its U.S. cigarette brands by US$31.5-billion
d. Writing down the value of some of its U.S. cigarette brands by US$31.5-billion. The writedown marks the first time a major global tobacco company has written off the value of its traditional cigarettes business in a major market such as the United States.
11Home economics: How large a balance does the typical Canadian carry on his or her credit card?
a. Less than $2,000
b. Between $2,000 and $4,000
c. Between $4,000 and $5,000
d. More than $5,000
c. Between $4,000 and $5,000. The average balance of credit-card holders rose to $4,119 in the third quarter of this year, up from $3,727 a year earlier, according to credit bureau Equifax.
12More home economics: Canada’s Food Price Report predicts an average family of four will spend roughly how much on groceries in 2024?
a. $12,000
b. $14,000
c. $16,000
d. $18,000
c. $16,000. The report predicts a slowdown in the rate of food-price inflation. Grocery prices rose 5.9 per cent this year; they are likely to climb less than 4.5 per cent in 2024.
How well did you do?
Answer all of the questions to see your result
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Ian McGugan