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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: Dax Dasilva, the founder of Lightspeed Commerce Inc., became its CEO once again. He had stepped down from the role in February, 2022, but returned on an interim basis in February. The payments company confirmed his reappointment on the same day it announced a loss of US$32.5-million for the quarter ended March 31 (which was still an improvement on the year before).

Also: Shares in Trump Media and Technology Group surged on Wednesday to around $53, approaching where the parent company of Truth Social ended its first day of trading on March 26, at just under $58. Former U.S. president Donald Trump owns close to two-thirds of the company and some observers have compared it with meme stocks, with the price driven by investor sentiment rather than performance.


1Ottawa and Washington joined forces this week to:
a. Crack down on cross-border tax cheats
b. Invest in junior Canadian miners
c. Revise rules for electric vehicles (EVs)
d. Launch an incubator program for AI developers

b. Invest in junior Canadian miners. Ottawa and Washington teamed up for the first time to invest in two early-stage Canadian miners. The companies – cobalt developer Fortune Minerals Ltd. and graphite explorer Lomiko Metals Inc. – focus on metals that China now dominates.

2Rents are jumping across Canada, but one province stood out in April for its particularly massive increases. Which was it?
a. Alberta
b. British Columbia
c. Nova Scotia
d. Saskatchewan

d. Saskatchewan led the nation in annual rent increases in April. Landlords in the province are asking 18 per cent more on average for available units than they did a year previous, according to research firm Urbanation and rental platform Rentals.ca.

3Japan’s Asahi Kasei announced plans this week to build a $1.6-billion factory in Canada to serve the EV battery market. Its decision highlights the recent surge of industrial investment into which region?
a. Niagara
b. Southwestern Ontario
c. Annapolis Valley
d. Southern Alberta

a. Niagara. The Niagara region has recently had a spate of good news. Asahi Kasei says it will build its new factory in Port Colborne. Meanwhile, Canadian auto-parts maker Linamar Corp is building Canada’s first gigacasting factory in nearby Welland and General Motors has announced plans to make drive units for electric vehicles in St. Catharines.

4U.S. President Joe Biden said this week he is hiking tariffs on Chinese EVs to 100 per cent. The massive levy is intended to shield U.S. automakers from an onslaught of low-priced EVs from China, such as the Seagull, a four-door car that can travel 405 km on a single charge. The Seagull sells in China for around:
a. US$25,000
b. US$18,000
c. US$12,000
d. US$10,000

c. US$12,000. The Seagull would probably cost a bit more than US$12,000 if imported to North America because it would have to meet higher safety standards, experts say. Still, the car’s impressive look and handling demonstrates how Chinese automakers are leading the way in developing low-cost EVs.

5A handful of stocks soared this week on hopes that “Roaring Kitty” may be back. What the heck is “Roaring Kitty”?
a. A Japan-based social media platform
b. An AI-based stock market trader
c. A cryptocurrency-based online bank
d. The online persona of a meme stock influencer

d. The online persona of a meme stock influencer. Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” was a central figure in the 2021 meme stock frenzy, in which crowds of small online traders propelled a tiny number of marginal stocks to huge gains. He returned this week to social-media platform X after a gap of nearly three years with a cryptic series of movie clips. His posts were enough to send GameStop and AMC, two of the more prominent meme stocks, to big (if temporary) gains.

6The three major U.S. stock market indexes – the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq – all hit record closing highs this week after:
a. U.S. inflation numbers ticked downward
b. Corporate profits surged
c. The U.S. Federal Reserve said it was going to cut rates
d. “Roaring Kitty” declared it was time to buy

a. U.S. inflation numbers ticked downward. U.S. stocks jumped after the latest Consumer Price Index report showed that inflation eased slightly in April. The report bolstered hopes that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later this year, a move that would be good for stocks.

7It was a week full of poignant farewells. One of them was to Arthur Irving, a key member of the Irving dynasty in New Brunswick, who died at 93. How many brothers did the billionaire oilman have?
a. One
b. Two
c. Three
d. Six

b. Two. Mr. Irving had two brothers – James and John. The three Irving sons divided up the sprawling empire founded by their father, K.C. Irving, with Arthur taking on Irving Oil and vastly expanding its refining operations.

8The business world also said goodbye to Jim Simons, 86, arguably the greatest investor of all time. What did Mr. Simons do before he became a full-time investor at the age of 40?
a. He taught philosophy.
b. He wrote novels.
c. He worked as a code breaker.
d. He played professional poker.

c. He worked as a code breaker. Mr. Simons, founder of Renaissance Technologies, was a brilliant mathematician who worked during the Cold War as a code breaker for the U.S. government. He then built a stellar career in academia but left teaching to pursue investing full time in 1978. His flagship Medallion Fund generated returns of more than 60 per cent a year on average over three decades.

9Netflix is getting sporty. The entertainment giant said this week that it has reached agreement to:
a. Stream baseball’s World Series
b. Stream UEFA Champions League games on New Year’s Day
c. Stream National Football League games on Christmas
d. Stream the Stanley Cup finals

c. Stream National Football League games on Christmas. In Netflix’s biggest bet to date on live sports, the company said it will stream at least one NFL game globally on Christmas Day for the next three years. Netflix will start by streaming two Christmas games this year and will pay the NFL about US$75-million a game to do so.

10In a sign of the increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, Microsoft said this week that:
a. It was asking hundreds of employees based in China to consider transferring outside the country
b. It was closing down its research centre in China
c. It was no longer allowing researchers in key areas, such as AI, to visit China
d. It would stop using components made in China

a. It was asking hundreds of employees to consider transferring outside China. Microsoft is asking hundreds of China-based staff to consider moving to other countries, including the U.S., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Most of the affected people work in machine learning and other cloud computing-related work, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.

11Who earned the biggest pay package – US$76-million – at Ottawa-based Shopify Inc. in 2023?
a. Its chief executive officer
b. Its chief operating officer
c. Its chief technology officer
d. Its president

b. Its chief operating officer. Kaz Nejatian, chief operating officer since September, 2022, earned US$76-million in total compensation in 2023. His pay, which came largely through stock and option awards, dwarfed that of chief executive Tobias Lutke and president Harley Finkelstein.

12The Paradise Problem, the latest novel from a best-selling duo of U.S. romance authors, features a central character who may remind Canadian readers of:
a. Shopify founder Tobias Lutke
b. Former Research In Motion chairman Jim Balsillie
c. Lululemon founder Chip Wilson
d. Loblaw chairman Galen Weston

d. Loblaw chairman Galen Weston. The writing duo of Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings say any similarities between the fictional Liam Weston, hero of The Paradise Problem, and the real-life Galen Weston are coincidental. Although the fabulously wealthy Liam Weston is described as an heir to Weston Foods, Billings said, “we did not know that there was any grocery family.”

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