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: Beef prices, dental visits and condominium prices all offered hints about where the North American economy is headed. There were also swings in Chinese consumer prices and a shift in the interest rate for overdue taxes.
Meanwhile, WeWork declared bankruptcy, Ottawa offered a big payday for consultants and a new AI venture entered the chat.
Do you remember these stories? Take our quiz below to test your recall for the week ending Nov 10. The Globe’s financial services editor Janet McFarland took this quiz and scored 8 out of 11. Can you beat her score?
1The federal government paid $670,000 to consultants at KPMG for advice on how to:
a. Save money on consultants
b. Improve public perception of the carbon tax
c. Interpret the government’s own tax code
d. Redesign bureaucrats’ business cards
a. Save money on consultants. The department of Natural Resources approved $669,650 for the global professional services company.
2Help! Tax experts say Canada Revenue Agency will soon bump up interest rate on overdue taxes to:
a. 4 per cent
b. 8 per cent
c. 10 per cent
d. 12 per cent
c. 10 per cent. The rate had remained stable at five per cent or six per cent since 2007.
3WeWork Inc., the giant office-sharing company that filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection this week, was never afraid to blow its own horn. It once claimed:
a. “We plan to dominate the world’s office supply.”
b. “We have discovered unique ways to boost worker productivity to unheard-of levels.”
c. “We are the launch pad for unprecedented creativity.”
d. “Our mission is to elevate the world’s consciousness.”
d. “Our mission is to elevate the world’s consciousness.” As part of its restructuring, the company will close four Canadian locations.
4Tech billionaire Elon Musk says his new AI venture is launching a chatbot called Grok. He claims the new AI model will set itself apart from competitors with its:
a. Conservative political stance
b. Unique graphics
c. Sense of humour
d. Access to data from X (formerly Twitter)
5China’s consumer prices fell in October. The country’s slide into deflation is in large part the result of:
a. Falling pork prices
b. Plunging property prices
c. Declining stock prices
d. An overhaul of the country’s statistical agency
a. Falling pork prices. Pork prices fell 30.1 per cent from the previous year.
6Is Canada’s economy slowing? One indicator to watch is the number of factories, arenas, schools and hospitals under construction. According to Statistics Canada, the total value of non-residential building permits in September was:
a. 5.2 per cent lower than a year earlier
b. Flat compared to last year
c. 9.8 per cent higher than a year earlier
d. 18.7 per cent higher than a year earlier
7Still on the economy: Household budgets are under pressure and people are scrimping. According to Statistics Canada, how many Canadians did not see a dentist over the past 12 months?
a. About one in 10
b. About one in four
c. About one in three
d. About one in two
c. About one in three. Sixty-five per cent of Canadians reported seeing a dental professional over the last year.
8Higher interest rates and economic uncertainty are putting a damper on Toronto’s real estate market. Developers had expected to launch 27,000 units in the region this year. But as of the end of September, they had launched only:
a. 13,000
b. 15,000
c. 18,000
d. 20,000
a. 13,000. Toronto developers have delayed launching almost 14,000 condo units this year.
9U.S. beef prices are hitting record highs in large part because of:
a. Labour shortages on farms
b. The worst dry spell in 1,200 years
c. A post-pandemic boom in beef consumption
d. A 30 per cent drop in farm subsidies
b. The worst dry spell in 1,200 years. The national cattle herd’s size has hit a 61-year low.
10Which Canadian stock has done best this year, soaring more than 60 per cent since January?
a. Loblaw Companies, the supermarket chain
b. Constellation Software, the diversified software company
c. Stella-Jones, the maker of utility poles
d. Brookfield Asset Management, the investment manager
c. Stella-Jones, the maker of utility poles. National Bank Financial analyst Maxim Sytchev says the stock’s price may settle but the company’s fundamentals “remain robust.”
11 The price of bitcoin has jumped more than 25 per cent over the past month largely because of:
a. Growing worries about what big budget deficits will mean for the U.S. dollar
b. Speculation that U.S. regulators are close to approving exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that can directly hold bitcoin
c. New rules that reduce the tax bite on bitcoin trading for European investors
d. Rumours that China’s central bank is buying crypto assets
b. Speculation that U.S. regulators are close to approving ETFs that can directly hold bitcoin. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) currently is considering as many as 10 applications to launch similar spot-based ETFs in the U.S.
How well did you do?
Answer all of the questions to see your result
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Ian McGugan