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 year: It was a year filled with labour unrest, inflation uncertainty and fear of recession. But 2023 wasn’t all bad vibes. There was also market exuberance and enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. As the year comes to a close, here are the companies, people and events that defined business and investing news in the past 12 months.
1The Magnificent Seven dominated stock markets in 2023. This group of high-flying U.S. tech stocks consists of Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and which two other companies?
a. Nvidia and Tesla
b. PayPal and Nvidia
c. Tesla and Intel
d. Electronic Arts and Salesforce
a. Nvidia and Tesla. Nvidia, a chip maker, and Tesla, the electric-vehicle manufacturer, round out the Magnificent Seven.
2Investors had more than their share of surprises in 2023. Which of the following assets did best during the year?
a. Clean energy stocks
b. Uranium ore
c. Bitcoin
d. Cocoa
c. Bitcoin. Bitcoin gained more than 150 per cent as it rebounded from a horrible 2022 and U.S. regulators moved closer to allowing a bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Meanwhile, cocoa futures soared 91 per cent as extreme weather ravaged crops, and uranium ore gained 80 per cent, as interest revived in nuclear power. Clean energy stocks, though, had a dreadful year.
3Joe Natale, the former chief executive of Rogers Communications, is suing the telecom giant for wrongful dismissal and breach of contract. Among his allegations is that controlling shareholder Edward Rogers or his wife hired actor Brian Cox of the HBO show Succession to:
a. Say critical things about Mr. Natale to TV reviewers
b. Write a letter criticizing Mr. Natale in the company’s annual report
c. Appear in a disparaging video about Mr. Natale
d. Portray Mr. Natale in a one-act play presented at a Rogers corporate retreat
c. Appear in a disparaging video about Mr. Natale. Mr. Natale says the disparaging video featured Mr. Cox congratulating Mr. Rogers for his “real-life Succession at Rogers Communications.”
4Speaking of Succession: Many people think the hit TV show was a thinly veiled portrayal of media tycoon and serial monogamist Rupert Murdoch. Be that as it may, Mr. Murdoch had an unusually busy year for a 92-year-old. What did he announce in 2023?
a. He was remarrying
b. He was suing the producers of Succession
c. He was releasing his own television show
d. He was expecting an out-of-wedlock child
a. He was remarrying. Mr. Murdoch announced in March he was marrying for the fifth time. However, he called it off barely two weeks later. In September, he announced he was stepping down as chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp.
5Canada had 227,000 temporary residents back in 2000. How many did it have this fall?
a. 225,000
b. 400,000
c. 1.25 million
d. 2.5 million
d. 2.5 million. Canada’s soaring number of non-permanent residents is adding to stress on rental markets.
6Who was fired in 2023 for not being “consistently candid”?
a. Sam Bankman-Fried, chief of crypto exchange FTX
b. Sam Altman, boss of artificial intelligence pioneer OpenAI
c. Trevor Milton, founder of electric-truck maker Nikola
d. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of blood tester Theranos
b. Sam Altman. Mr. Altman was ousted as leader of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, only to be reinstated a few days later after protests from employees and investors.
7Which of the following groups was NOT on strike at some point in 2023?
a. Ford Canada workers
b. Quebec civil servants
c. Federal government employees
d. B.C. port workers
a. Ford Canada workers. Ford Motor Co. of Canada and its workers reached a last-minute agreement to stave off a strike.
8Which Canadian bank stock performed best in 2023?
a. Royal Bank of Canada
b. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
c. National Bank of Canada
d. Toronto-Dominion Bank
b. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. CIBC was the top-performing big bank stock in 2023 – largely because it was rebounding from a lousy 2022.
9Canada is building about 260,000 homes a year. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., how many additional homes would be needed by 2030, over and above the existing pace of construction, to make homes affordable again?
a. 1 million
b. 1.5 million
c. 2.5 million
d. 3.5 million
d. 3.5 million. CMHC’s estimate suggests that Canada needs to more than double its current pace of housing construction to restore housing affordability to where it stood 20 years ago.
10Which of these stock market indexes had the biggest advance in 2023?
a. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index
b. Canada’s S&P/TSX Composite Index
c. China’s CSI 300 Index
d. Britain’s FTSE 100 Index
a. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index. Japan’s Nikkei index jumped 28 per cent. The Canadian benchmark gained 8 per cent and the British index rose 4 per cent while China’s CSI index lost 12 per cent.
11Charlie Munger, the billionaire investor who died this year at age 99, was never afraid of speaking his mind. What investment did he denounce as “absolutely crazy, stupid gambling”?
a. Chinese stocks
b. Gold
c. Cryptocurrency
d. Fine art
c. Cryptocurrency. Mr. Munger added that “people who oppose my position are idiots.” So there you go.
12“We don’t need more referees in Canada. We need more builders.” Who said this during 2023?
a. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre
b. Canadian Natural Resources president Tim McKay
c. Shopify chief executive Tobi Lütke
d. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. president Romy Bowers
c. Shopify chief executive Tobi Lütke. Mr. Lutke offered this blunt assessment in explaining why he was not signing the Canadian government’s new code of conduct on AI.
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