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: New reporting rules around bare trusts cost Canadian accounting firms and their clients close to $1-billion before the Canada Revenue Agency made a last-minute decision not to enforce them for 2023, a survey of the firms suggests. And those weren’t the only folks losing money. Tilray Brands Inc., a prominent cannabis producer, reported a loss of US$105-million for its third fiscal quarter ended Feb. 29, compared with a loss of US$1.2-billion a year earlier, when it recorded a large one-time impairment charge. And Postmedia News reported a net loss of $20.1-million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $20.8-million a year earlier.
Also: There were plenty of comings and goings at Canadian banks
b. June. Mr. Macklem indicated a rate cut is possible at the next meeting of the Bank of Canada’s governing council in June, but cautioned the central bank would require evidence that the recent decline in inflation is sustained and durable.
a. From an internal tip line. The bank received a complaint on an internal tip line on March 11, leading to a probe of one of the institution's most senior executives.
d. Up more than 40 per cent from a year ago. Cineplex’s box office revenue in March was up 46 per cent compared to a year ago. Credit goes largely to Dune: Part Two and Kung Fu Panda 4.
c. Kristalina Georgieva. Ms. Georgieva blamed a widespread slowdown in productivity growth for her gloomy forecast. She said the IMF’s five-year outlook for global growth is now just above 3 per cent a year, considerably below the historical average of 3.8 per cent.
a. Jamie Dimon. Mr. Dimon said in his annual letter to shareholders that geopolitics and political polarization are creating the biggest risks since the Second World War. He also said that while financial markets think there is a “70 to 80 per cent” chance of the United States economy achieving a soft landing, he personally thinks the probability is “a lot less” than that.
c. China. Fitch says risks to China's public finances are rising as the country attempts to shift away from heavy reliance on its troubled property sector to drive growth. Despite downgrading the credit outlook to negative, the agency kept China’s sovereign debt rated at A+.
d. Argentine’s Javier Milei. Mr. Milei, a libertarian firebrand, levelled the insult against supporters of Mr. Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s left-leaning president. But, hey, Mr. Lopez Obrador has called Mr. Milei an “ultraconservative fascist.”
d. 320,000. The country needs 320,000 new housing units annually simply to meet new demand, RBC estimates. It expects the housing affordability crisis to hit even more alarming levels in coming years unless governments take bold policy steps.
a. Eliminate requirements for parking spaces near stations. The elimination of some parking-space requirements could lower the price of some condos by $2,000 to $100,000 each, the province estimates. However, the bill does not require municipalities to allow fourplexes, an idea proposed by the Ontario Conservatives’ own 2022 blue-ribbon housing task force.
b. Host a podcast. Mr. Tangen's podcast, In Good Company, features interviews with chief executives of the companies that the fund invests in. Elon Musk was a recent guest.
b. The outlook for interest rate cuts. Mr. Carney warned that interest rates are unlikely to return to prepandemic lows and that cuts would likely come more slowly than the market expects.
c. US$700,000. The US$700,000 membership fee is up from about US$200,000 before the pandemic, according to the Financial Times.
Ian McGugan