It was a good week for Blackberry. Do you know why?Andrew Ryan/The Canadian Press
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: It was a good week for BlackBerry and people who betted oil prices would drop. Why? Take our quiz and find out.
d. My, my, what incredible luck. Just hours before the U.S. and Iran announced a ceasefire, some traders placed a nearly billion-dollar bet on oil prices falling. The unusual market action was the latest well-timed wager on oil prices just ahead of a major policy announcement by Mr. Trump. It’s nearly as if someone is making a fortune by trading on insider information from the White House. But that would be outrageous, wouldn’t it?
b. In a test project, Air Canada is approaching 500 randomly selected customers with complaints before the Canadian Transportation Agency. It is offering them the option to transfer their cases to an arbitrator. Passengers who accept the offer will get a ruling within 90 days. Otherwise, they can continue to press their complaint with the CTA – but the regulator has a backlog of 96,000 complaints and can take years to complete a case.
c. Meta Platforms saw its stock price jump after it unveiled Muse Spark, an artificial intelligence model. Muse Spark is the first product to come from the spectacularly expensive team that Meta assembled last year, when it began handing out pay packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars to attract AI experts to its new superintelligence team.
a. The annoyed judge chastised Mr. Ng for citing inaccurate legal precedents created by artificial intelligence in last-minute legal filings. The judge said the Winnipeg-born businessman is dragging out his already years-long bankruptcy proceedings. Mr. Ng was co-owner of the failed private lender Bridging Finance. He owes $27-million and was legally declared bankrupt in April, 2023.
c. Potash, a potassium compound, is a key nutrient in plant fertilizers. Thirty per cent of the global supply comes from Saskatchewan. BHP’s new potash mine in the province is the biggest investment in the company’s history.
a. Mr. Ackman is trying to engineer a link-up between his Pershing Square group and Universal Music Group, the recording label that is home to Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Drake among others. Mr. Ackman wants to list Universal on the New York Stock Exchange.
d. Between 2015 and 2025, the number of home invasions and break-and-enters soared 145 per cent in Rosedale-Moore Park. Residents say crimes are increasing in severity. Masked men show up at front entrances in the early morning, bodychecking doors until they give way or smashing windows to gain entry. Generally, they’re looking for jewellery and keys to luxury automobiles.
b. The Canadian technology stalwart reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter and laid out a rosier outlook than analysts had anticipated. The Waterloo, Ont.-based company said revenue for the quarter ended Feb. 28 was US$156-million, up 10 per cent year-over-year. It was the third time in the past four quarters BlackBerry has posted a net profit, after not doing so for three years.
d. LiveBarn livestreams amateur and youth sports over the internet from thousands of arenas, courts and fields across North America. Its fully automated system tracks the flow of the action using multiple cameras mounted around playing surfaces. The company built its business by providing free cameras to venues in exchange for exclusive streaming rights.
b. This doesn’t bode well: Nicola Wealth Management, a $17.6-billion money manager, halted investor redemptions at one of its real estate funds. The company said investors will no longer be allowed to withdraw their money from the Nicola Value Add Real Estate LP, which invests in real estate development projects and has a large exposure to residential condos. Condo developers are wrestling with buyer defaults, a glut of unsold inventory and weak sales.
c. Data collected by the digital real estate platform Wahi.com shows a parking spot added an average $126,000 to the price of a one-bedroom condo in 12 Toronto neighborhoods. The price premium was largest in Riverdale, a neighbourhood near the waterfront and along the Don Valley, where a typical one-bedroom condo with parking fetched $268,000 more than one without.
a. OpenAI reportedly expects to generate US$2.5-billion in advertising revenue this year, with projections to reach US$100-billion by 2030. The company’s recent move to add advertising to its AI chats has stirred concern among privacy critics who warn it will turn supposedly confidential discussions between users and a chatbot into a source of marketing leads.