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 U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday reported better-than-expected retail sales. Observers suggested lower gas prices freed up cash to spend at restaurants and bars, as well as clothing stores and online retailers. The new numbers were another sign that the country’s economic growth was continuing at a strong pace in the third quarter. But that’s America. How are things in this country? Well, we have insights.
b. 2021. The September inflation number was the lowest since February, 2021, and is likely to encourage the Bank of Canada to move aggressively to chop interest rates.
d. It is about 20 per cent higher. Despite what you may think, the average purchasing power of a Canadian household is up a rather impressive 21 per cent since the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. However, that overall figure hides large ups and downs. Purchasing power soared in the early days of the pandemic, but since 2022 rising inflation and higher interest rates have eroded purchasing power, especially among the bottom 40 per cent of households.
a. About $280,000. TD directors made an average of $285,000 last year for their part-time work on the bank’s board.
c. U.S. stocks are at their most expensive level in decades. Mr. Einhorn wrote in a letter to Greenlight shareholders that, by many measures, the U.S. stock market is now at its most expensive level since Greenlight was founded in 1996. He pointed out that it’s not just technology stocks that are trading at nosebleed valuations, but many mature industrial businesses as well.
a. ASML, the Dutch company that dominates the global market for computer-chip-making equipment, saw its shares tumble 16 per cent on Tuesday after it accidentally published its earnings report earlier than expected. The report contained a downbeat sales forecast that cast a pall over ASML stock and the entire semiconductor sector.
d. Boeing, the embattled aircraft manufacturer, is planning to cut 17,000 jobs – roughly 10 per cent of its global workforce – and delay deliveries of some planes as it grapples with its recent history of accidents and technical malfunctions as well as a month-long strike.
c. 7 per cent. A paper published by the Ecological Economics journal estimates the Canadian dairy industry disposed of about 7 per cent of the milk it produced between 2012 and 2021. The dairy industry disputes the finding.
a. Quebec. Interfor is selling three plants in Quebec and closing its Montreal office as it prepares to focus on other parts of the company.
c. For claiming benefits they were not entitled to. CRA said it fired the workers for improperly collecting the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. The benefit provided $2,000 a month to compensate people who lost their jobs as a result of public health restrictions during the pandemic.
b. The Ku Klux Klan. The candle was emblazoned with an image of paper snowflakes that looked like Ku Klux Klan hoods.
b. Elon Musk gave the money to a pro-Trump group he founded over the summer.
d. Because its internet addresses end in .ai. Revenue from the British territory’s web registration fees quadrupled last year and now account for about 20 per cent of Anguilla’s government revenue.