Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Each week, join us 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: Inflation remains a topic of conversation, in Canada and around the world, with new U.S. numbers released this week showing an increase in the annual rate. Elsewhere, while discussing his company’s surging profits, a Canadian chief executive pointed to inflation as a reason why consumers are seeking out value in their stores.
Meanwhile, the aviation data company, Cirium, released a new report on the worst airline offenders when it comes to late flights in North America. Unsurprising to many travellers, two Canadian companies topped the list.
Do you remember these stories? Take our quiz below to test your recall for the week ending Aug. 11.
1. The U.S. annual inflation rate edged up to 3.2 per cent in July after a stretch of declines. How many months has it been since the year-over-year pace of consumer prices quickened in the U.S.?
12. Before rising in July from a 3-per-cent annual increase in June, the inflation rate had been slowing steadily since peaking at 9.1 per cent in June, 2022. Read the full story
2. Who said it? “Inflation is tough. People are searching for value in all our stores, on all of their trips.”
a. Greg Hicks, CEO of Canadian Tire Corp.
b. Josh Kobza, CEO of Restaurant Brands International Inc. (owner of Tim Hortons)
c. Neil Rossy, CEO of Dollarama Inc.
d. Eric La Flèche, CEO of Metro Inc.
Eric La Flèche. Metro said its third-quarter profits rose by more than 10 per cent, as inflation pushed prices higher and consumers made more trips to its discount stores, such as Food Basics. Read the full story
3. While Canadian cannabis producer Tilray waits (and waits, and waits) for the U.S. federal government to legalize cannabis, the company bought eight American beer brands, including Shock Top from Anheuser-Busch Companies, to diversify its alcohol portfolio. How large will the beer deals make Tilray in the U.S. craft-beer sector?
a. 12th largest
b. 9th largest
c. 5th largest
d. 3rd largest
5th largest. No purchase price was given for the acquisitions, which add to Tilray’s existing alcohol portfolio of four U.S. breweries, a distillery and a CBD beverage company. Read the full story
4. There are 3,993 portfolio managers registered with the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. Of those, what percentage are women?
a. 33 per cent
b. 21 per cent
c. 14 per cent
d. 8 per cent
14 per cent. As of December, 2022, 554 women were registered with the regulator. Read the full story
5. The federal government launched a pilot program to speed up the approval process for some businesses to bring in temporary foreign workers. To qualify for the “recognized employer” program, a business must prove:
a. It has brand recognition with temporary foreign workers it is seeking to hire
b. That “a greater need for temporary foreign workers exists” than under current Labour Market Impact Assessment guidelines
c. It has “a history of complying with program requirements”
d. All of the above
“A history of complying with program requirements.” To qualify, employers must have had three successful Labour Market Impact Assessments in the past five years for workers deemed to be “in-shortage” and will face a more rigorous upfront assessment. Read the full story
6. The Globe and Mail reported this week on two companies that are both trying to address the shortage of rental housing in Canada by doing what?
a. Renovating empty office cubicles into bachelor pads
b. Matching students with homeowners with empty rooms, such as seniors
c. Converting shipping containers into rental units to be housed on the grounds of several universities and colleges
d. Using generative AI to match potential roommates based on criteria like personal finances but also musical tastes and hygiene habits
Matching students with homeowners. Sparrow Living Inc. and SpacesShared have launched home sharing platforms to connect students and other renters with some of the growing share of homeowners who live in properties with empty bedrooms, such as the elderly. Read the full story
7. The gap between the 12-month earnings yield on the S&P 500 and the 10-year U.S. Treasury note — known as the equity risk premium — fell to less than 100 basis points earlier this week. As David Rosenberg wrote, “the lower the premium, the lower the margin of safety in stocks.” When was the last time the premium was this low?
a. September, 1987, right before the Black Monday crash
b. March, 2000, right before the dot-com bubble burst
c. September, 2007, right before the global financial crisis
d. December, 2021, right before last year’s bear market
March, 2000. The risk premium fell even lower than it is now as dot-com stocks soared and the S&P 500 reached a fevered peak, only to correct by nearly 50 per cent over the next two years. Read the full story
8. There has been a string of US$1-billion plus takeovers of Canadian life-sciences companies recently. In the latest deal Novo Nordisk is paying more than US$1 billion for Montreal startup Inversago Pharma Inc. What area of the drug business is Inversago focused on?
a. Sleeplessness
b. Weight loss
c. Covid vaccines
d. Cancer
Weight loss. The company is conducting an efficacy trial on obese patients with diabetic kidney disease, with results expected in 2024 as well as a second trial for patients with obesity and metabolic syndrome. Read the full story
9. What per cent of Air Canada flights arrived late in July?
a. 27 per cent
b. 33 per cent
c. 49 per cent
d. 65 per cent
Forty-nine per cent. Air Canada had the poorest showing of the 10 largest airlines in North America, with only just over half of all flights arriving at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled hour, according to aviation data company Cirium. (WestJet placed seventh.) Read the full story
10. How much is this house? The two-bedroom condo in a boutique building on Yonge Street offers two-sided fireplace within its 1,115-square-foot layout.
a. $1,001,800
b. $1,098,000
c. $2,198,000
d. $1,000,098
$1,001,800. “It’s a boutique building and a coveted building in that neighbourhood, and there aren’t that many smaller condos in that pocket, so I thought it would be popular,” agent Sandra Pate said. Read the full story
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