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: Amazon.com beat market estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday, thanks to growth in its cloud services unit driven by growing spending on AI. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud business, reported a 19-per-cent increase in sales to US$27.5-billion. The Seattle-based company said sales in its North America segment rose 9-per-cent overall to $95.5-billion in the third quarter. But it wasn’t the only firm that beat expectations this week! Meanwhile, what about Elon Musk? Did a judge say he was disappointed in the billionaire’s most recent scheme? Take our quiz to find out.
d. Less than $50,000. Homeowners near retirement age have a net worth nearly 30 times greater on average than renters. The disparity reflects the huge run-up in home prices over the past two decades and underlines why so many people are desperate to get into the housing market.
c. By not requiring sick notes for absences. Writing sick notes takes up roughly a million hours of doctors’ time a year, the Canadian Medical Association estimates. It called on provinces to ban employers from demanding the notes.
b. The theft of 22 metric tons of award-winning cheddar from a British cheesemaker. A con artist stole nearly 1,000 wheels of cloth-wrapped artisanal cheddar from Neal’s Yard Dairy in England. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver called on his social-media followers to be on the lookout for “lorry loads of very posh cheese.”
c. By insisting the paper endorse no one. Who’s afraid of Mr. Trump? Mr. Bezos said he decided to break with the Post’s long-standing history of endorsing presidential candidates because he wanted to dispel any claim the paper is biased. However, many readers – and many of the paper’s staff – were outraged by the sudden declaration of the Post’s new non-endorsement policy a week before a contentious election.
a. Working illegally in the United States. Mr. Musk has become a cheerleader for Mr. Trump and his claims that undocumented workers are destroying U.S. society. However, court records and company documents show Mr. Musk was working illegally in the United States when he launched his first company in the mid-1990s, according to the Post.
b. Blackstone and Rogers have signed a non-binding agreement for Blackstone to buy a piece of the Rogers network that connects cellphone towers to the company’s core network.
a. Wind farms off the coast of England. It is Brookfield’s first investment in offshore British wind power.
d. Microsoft. This bull market is proving to have some sharp horns. Eli Lilly, McDonald’s and Starbucks have all disappointed investors in recent days. Microsoft, though, continues to power ahead. Bet against the Magnificent Seven at your peril!
b. Pet medications. The national competition watchdog said pharmacists are blocked from stocking pet medicines and called on provinces to take action to give shoppers more choice.
c. Volkswagen. VW asked workers to take a 10-per-cent pay cut, as its profits slumped to a three-year low. Its struggles reflect slumping European car sales and growing competition from China.
d. It flat-lined. The lacklustre report adds to fears that the economy might have missed the Bank of Canada’s growth forecast for the third quarter.