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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”