Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week: The Bank of Canada and U.S. Federal Reserve both announced their interest rate decisions this week, however the U.S. President’s own interest appears preoccupied with a new $15-billion lawsuit and targeting Jimmy Kimmel over his comments on Charlie Kirk’s death. But which other late-night hosts are facing Trump’s wrath? Take our quiz to find out.
a. It cut interest rates by a quarter-point. The Bank of Canada cut its benchmark rate from 2.75 to 2.5 per cent, lowering borrowing costs for the first time since March as U.S. tariffs continued to batter the Canadian economy.
d. All the above. Sigh. Data breaches are everywhere it seems, from financial service providers and regulatory organizations to luxury retailers.
c. Greenwashing. The OSC alleges that Mr. Seif and his company, Purpose Investments, made false or misleading statements in which they claimed to use environmental, social and governance, or ESG, factors to help select investments in several funds. The OSC says the funds did not actually consider ESG factors. Mr. Seif denies the allegations. He says the commission is simply eager to prosecute someone for greenwashing – that is, making inflated claims about the supposed environmental benefits of a product.
d. Reporting quarterly financial results. Mr. Trump suggested companies report results every six months instead of every three months. He says the move would save money and allow managers to focus on running their companies. Of course, it would also allow management to conceal problems for longer, but why would anyone worry about a little detail like that?
b. The New York Times. Mr. Trump has a habit of suing major news organizations as a way of intimidating them. This week, he filed a lawsuit against the NYT and Penguin Random House, saying they libelled him in news articles and a book entitled Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success. Hmmm. Sounds like an intriguing read.
a. Stephen Colbert. CBS cancelled Mr. Colbert’s show two months ago, and ABC said this week that Mr. Kimmel’s show would be suspended indefinitely. Mr. Trump is now targeting Mr. Fallon and Mr. Myers, urging NBC to pull them as well.
b. Nvidia. China accused Nvidia of violating the country’s anti-monopoly law, another escalation in its trade war with the United States. The two countries have traded barbs over the past six months since U.S. President Donald Trump hit China with massive tariffs and threatened to shut down popular social media app TikTok. China has responded with 10-per-cent tariffs and antitrust probes against the likes of Alphabet’s Google.
c. Humanoid robots. Brookfield Asset Management is partnering with Figure AI to help train and develop humanoid robots, then put them to work in homes and commercial settings. Figure is an artificial intelligence robotics company that is working to build autonomous, humanlike robots that it hopes will have human-level intelligence and the skills to work on an assembly line or fold laundry.
a. Ivanhoe Mines. The Qatar Investment Authority is investing US$500-million in Ivanhoe Mines through a private placement, giving the sovereign wealth fund a 4 per cent stake in the Canadian miner. Ivanhoe operates three projects in southern Africa, including its flagship Kamoa-Kakula copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the world’s largest high-grade copper deposits.
c. Two. The rate cut, along with projections of two more reductions this year, signal that Fed officials are now less worried about persistent inflation and more concerned about weakening growth.
b. It struck a deal with Nvidia. In one of the odder corporate moves this year, Nvidia said it will invest US$5-billion in Intel, throwing its heft behind the struggling U.S. chip foundry. What’s the strategy behind the move? That’s not entirely clear, but it is worth noting that the U.S. government took a 10 per cent stake in Intel last month.
d. He is protesting Unilever’s silencing of the brand’s social conscience. Mr. Greenfield is leaving the ice cream brand after 47 years, saying that the independence it once had to speak up on social issues has been stifled by its parent company. In a letter, Mr. Greenfield said he could not “in good conscience” remain at Ben & Jerry’s because of interference from Unilever, which he said had agreed to give Ben & Jerry’s autonomy around its social mission when it acquired the brand more than two decades ago.