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: The Bank of Canada delivered an oversized interest-rate cut on Wednesday and said that its fight with inflation is almost over. As widely expected, the bank’s governing council lowered the benchmark policy rate by half a percentage-point, or 50 basis points, to 3.75 per cent. Also being cut this week? Some of Toronto-Dominion Bank’s ratings by Moody’s. The agency lowered the long-term ratings of the bank and its U.S. subsidiary, citing concerns over governance weaknesses and anti-money-laundering failures.
d. This is the fourth cut. The central bank has cut rates four times in just over four months. It spent last year raising interest rates in an effort to bring high inflation under control. Now it faces the opposite problem as inflation slumps below target.
b. Lawyers. FINTRAC warned in a special bulletin that some legal professionals are offering a veneer of respectability to questionable transactions. It says the legal profession suffers from a gap of oversight as lawyers outside of British Columbia are not subject to the obligations of Canada’s anti-money-laundering regime.
b. Metro’s loyalty program. Moi Rewards is Metro’s loyalty program. It rolled out last year in Quebec and New Brunswick.
a. Sex trafficking. Mike Jeffries was arrested on charges of luring men into drug-fuelled sex parties by dangling the promise of modeling for the company’s beefcake ads.
b. Nearly tripled. Profits have never been a thing at Trump Media, so you can assume the company’s soaring share price is an implicit bet on the rising odds of The Donald winning the presidential election next month.
c. For multitasking. Ernst & Young fired employees for taking part in two online courses simultaneously. EY said the practice violated its code of conduct. Some of us might argue it was a rational reaction to online training courses.
a. By borrowing it. Couche-Tard plans to borrow most of the amount if its bid proves successful. That would presumably be good news for shareholders since their equity stakes will not be heavily diluted by the issuance of new shares.
b. Gold. How frothy is this market? Since Jan. 1, gold has shot up 33 per centshot up 33 per cent and the S&P has advanced 22 per cent. (Calculated in U.S. dollars, dividends not included, to Oct. 24.) Yet neither has come close to bitcoin, which is up 59 per cent.
d. Moldova. Moldovans voted by a hair-thin margin to enshrine the country's move toward the EU in the country’s constitution. The results were marred by accusations of Russian interference aimed at defeating the motion.
c. 58 per cent. The unprecedented surge of immigrants and temporary foreign workers has added to pressures on the housing market and health care system. Ottawa is now slashing the targets from 500,000 immigrants a year to below 400,000 annually over the next three years. It is also attempting to rein in the number of temporary residents.
a. For giving away US$1-million a day to U.S. voters who sign a petition. The DOJ has warned Mr. Musk that he may be breaking the law, which prohibits anyone from paying people to register to vote. Mr. Musk is giving away money to randomly selected voters in swing states who have signed a petition in favour of first and second amendment rights. The catch is that you have to be registered to vote in certain states to sign the petition – which means the prizes can be viewed as an inducement to register to vote.
d. The father-in-law of an e-commerce entrepreneur. Bruce McKean is the father-in-law of Tobias Lutke, founder of Ottawa-based Shopify, and was an early investor in the e-commerce company. He says he was motivated to give by watching several loved ones struggle with mental illness.