Shopify logo hangs behind the Canadian flag after the company's IPO at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, on May 21, 2015.Lucas Jackson/Reuters
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: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new economy-focused cabinet was sworn in on Tuesday, including a well-known but rookie MP with a particularly buzzy title. Meanwhile, major Canadian companies Shopify and Onex were also making some big moves. But what were they up to? Take our quiz to find out.
c. It became a new member of a key index. Shopify’s share price jumped after the U.S.-based Nasdaq stock exchange announced that the e-commerce specialist would join its 100 Index on May 19. Inclusion in the index is expected to increase institutional investment in Shopify, since funds that track the Nasdaq 100 Index will now have to include the Canadian company’s shares in their holdings.
b. WestJet. Onex is selling a 25-per-cent stake in WestJet to Delta Air Lines and Korean Air Lines for a total price of US$550-million. Onex, which bought WestJet in 2019, just before the pandemic hit, will still own the remainder of the airline.
a. Microsoft began laying off about 6,000 employees this week, its largest cuts in more than two years as the company invests heavily in artificial intelligence.
b. Qatar is planning to give a Boeing 747-8, worth about US$400-million, to the U.S. Department of Defence to be used as part of a fleet of planes dubbed Air Force One – more colloquially, the U.S. president’s official ride. The White House says the plane will then be transferred to Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-built presidential library at the end of his term. Are the Qataris trying to buy Mr. Trump’s favour? Sure sounds like it.
c. About 12 per cent a year. The owners of pro sports teams may be sports fans, but they’re also astute investors. Over the past 20 years, owning a team in Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League or the National Hockey League has generated an average return of 12.3 per cent a year, according to an index compiled by the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and private-equity firm Arctos Partners LP. The profits from being a pro sports owner have beaten the returns from the stock or bond market.
d. Ontario and Manitoba are the latest provinces promising to remove trade barriers within Canada.
a. Dick’s Sporting Goods is buying Foot Locker for about US$2.4-billion. The deal is the second buyout of a major footwear company this month, following the announcement that Skechers is being taken private by investment firm 3G Capital for about US$9-billion. The footwear industry is reeling from the uncertainty around Donald Trump’s tariffs because it makes most of its products in Asia.
d. Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation. Mr. Solomon has been appointed Canada’s first minister for artificial intelligence. (No jokes, please, about who will be in charge of the natural variety.) His job title suggests that Mr. Carney intends to make the application of AI a priority for Canada’s economy.
d. Young Canadian university graduates. The unemployment rate for recent university and college graduates was a shocking 11.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2025. Excluding the pandemic period, that is the highest unemployment rate for this group in at least 20 years
a. HBO Max. Yep, Warner Bros. has come full circle and is reviving the HBO name – which makes perfect sense, given the positive associations many viewers have with the moniker. The only question: Why did they drop the name in the first place?
b. About 10 per cent. Home sales in April fell 9.8 per cent compared to the same month a year ago, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. Uncertainty over tariffs is keeping many potential buyers on the sidelines.
c. A general increase in prices because of tariffs. Walmart executives said they will have to start raising prices later this month because of the high cost of tariffs. They declined to provide a profit forecast for the second quarter. The rising prices and lack of clarity demonstrate that Donald Trump’s trade war is beginning to filter through to the U.S. economy.