Test your knowledge in the 2020 Biz Quiz

2. What does NASDAQ stand for?

a) Network of American Shares in Digital And Quantitative

b) National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations

c) Netflix, Alphabet, Starbucks, Dropbox, Apple, and Qualcomm

3. Which was one of the first companies to hit the capital raising panic button in March?

a) Telstra raising $200 million

b) Qantas raising $10 billion

c) Cochlear raising $930 million

4. From where did James Packer give his evidence to a NSW inquiry into Crown Resorts?

a) From Aspen where he has been stuck since the COVID-19 outbreak

b) From aboard a Crown Casino plane ferrying high rollers between Asia and Australia

c) From his luxury super yacht anchored near Tahiti

5. What was the biggest daily movement on the ASX200 this year?

a) A fall of 13% on 9 March

b) A fall of 9.7% on 16 March

c) A rise of 8% on 1 November

6. What was the name of the book by Liberal NSW senator Andrew Bragg that caused headaches for the superannuation industry?

a) Bad Egg: How to Fix Super

b) Super Terrible: How to Fix Super

c) Super Sad: What happens if the working class controls capital

7. Which bank used a full page ad in this masthead to issue a mea culpa in 2020?

a) Bendigo Bank – for refusing to accept gold nuggets

b) Westpac – for 23 million breaches of anti-money laundering laws

c) ME Bank – for abruptly changing it policies around redraw facilities

8. Surging iron ore prices helped Andrew Twiggy Forrest’s Fortescue Metals increase its share price from a low of $8.58 in March to record highs of above $23 in December. From trough to peak in 2020, by how much did Twiggy’s 36.2 per cent stake increase in value?

a) By about $1 billion

b) Between $5 billion and $10 billion

c) More than $15 billion

9. In September, ASX-listed Domino’s Pizza said its biggest country was now Japan with more than 700 stores. Which of the following flavours was not available on the Domino’s Japan pizza menu website in December?

a) American cheeseburger

b) Roast chicken with Hokkaido camembert

c) Shrimp Mayonnaise

10. What extraordinary event happened to oil prices in April 2020?

a) They dropped to $US20.20 per barrel for twenty days in a display of global solidarity by OPEC

b) Prices went negative, down to -$US37.63 per barrel, after an fund holding futures contracts panicked at the thought of actually taking possession of oil and paid someone to take the contracts

c) The price chart showed a contango front flip with a backwardation twist, something that hasn’t happened in a hundred years.

11. Which of the big four banks recorded the biggest decline in dividends in calendar 2020 compared to 2019?

a) Commonwealth Bank (dividend fell 15 per cent to $5.50)

b) Westpac (dividend fell 82 per cent to 31 cents)

c) National Australia Bank (dividend fell 100 per cent, it didn’t pay one)

12. Who phoned Woolworths boss Brad Banducci early in the pandemic to chat about toilet paper sales?

a) Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

b) Prime Minister Scott Morrison

c) Visy Industries executive chairman Anthony Pratt

13. Which of these three retailers received more in JobKeeper payments?

a) Department store Myer, which was forced to close its doors for nearly two months and stand down 10,000 staff

b) Smiggle, Portmans, and Peter Alexander owner Premier Investments, which also refused to pay rent for several months

c) Wesfarmers, which owns Officeworks, Kmart, and Bunnings.

14. How much cash did Crown Resorts find in a cupboard inside the private gaming parlour of its controversial “junket” partner Suncity at Crown Melbourne, which sent “money-laundering alarms ringing” but did not have any impact on the partnership?

a) $350,000

b) $2 million

c) $5.6 million

15. Which ASX-listed company lost its chief executive and chief financial officer within two weeks, is being sued by its former general counsel, and later revealed $590 million in losses?

a) Patriot Pastries

b) Freedom Foods

c) Nothing-left-to-lose Edibles

16. Which large corporate takeover did Treasurer Josh Frydenberg prevent on grounds it would be “contrary to the national interest”?

a) Chinese company Mengniu Dairy’s takeover of Japanese firm Lion Dairy & Drinks

b) Japanese group Asahi’s purchase of Carlton & United Breweries

c) The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System’s purchase of 19.99 per cent of electricity network operator Transgrid from Kuwaiti firm Wren House Infrastructure

17) How much did Afterpay’s market capitalisation grow from bottom of the market on March 23 to a peak on December 17?

a) from $500 million up to $3 billion

b) from $2.4 billion up to $34.2 billion

c) from $1 billion to $100 billion

18) Which neobank handed back its licence and all its customers’ money in December?

a) Xinhua

b) Xena

c) Xinja

19. Virgin Australia attracted a range of preliminary offers during a sale process run by the airline’s administrators. Which group was not a bidder?

a) Indigo Airlines from India via its largest shareholder InterGlobe Enterprises

b) Indigo Partners from Arizona

c) Indigo-go Aviation via its New York owner Cypress Capital

20. Which foreign company suddenly withdrew from Australia in January 2020 after spending hundreds of millions on property and staff, but never opening a store?

a) Canada’s Tim Horton’s

b) Germany’s Kaufland

c) China’s Alibaba

ANSWERS: 1:a 2:b 3:c 4:c 5:b 6:a 7:c 8:c 9:a 10:b 11:b 12:a 13:a 14:c 15:b 16:a 17:b 18:c 19:c 20:b

Score one point per correct answer.

Under 5 points: You will recover from 2020 without too much long term psychological scarring because you obviously avoided the news, but you also missed out the best gains in 30 years.

5 – 10 points: You managed to wake up and read the news most days. Congratulations!

10 – 15 points: Were you one of those annoying people who actually got fitter during lockdown?

15 – 20 points: Let’s hope you at least made a lot of money from paying so much attention to the rolling disaster that was 2020. Now go and spend it on someone who deserves it.