The five questions from Friday, August 14, 2026, with their answers. This puzzle is
no longer playable; today's game is on the home page, and
the last seven days can still be played in the
practice archive.
1 In 2015 a health technology corporation reached a private valuation of 10 billion dollars by claiming its proprietary blood testing devices required only a single pinprick of blood before regulatory investigations revealed widespread fraud that ultimately reduced the company valuation to zero by 2018.
Answer: THERANOS(8 letters)
2 During a severe economic crisis reaching its peak in 2008 a southern African nation printed currency denominations as high as 100 trillion dollars attempting to keep pace with a monthly price increase phenomenon that economists estimated reached 79 billion percent causing citizens to abandon the local currency entirely.
Answer: INFLATION(9 letters)
The rate at which the general price level rises, so each unit of currency buys less than it did. Usually quoted as a year-over-year percentage change in a price index such as CPI.
3 On a Monday morning in September 2008 an investment bank founded 158 years earlier filed for bankruptcy protection while holding over 600 billion dollars in assets which remains the largest bankruptcy filing in the history of the United States and triggered a massive global financial panic.
Answer: LEHMAN(6 letters)
4 In commodity derivative markets this structural pricing anomaly occurs when physical delivery contracts expiring in the near future trade at a premium to contracts expiring later which often forces commercial consumers to pay 20 percent or more above historical averages to secure immediate supply during severe inventory shortages.
Answer: BACKWARDATION(13 letters)
A futures market where contracts for later delivery trade below nearer ones, so the curve slopes downward - the opposite of contango.
5 A commercial real estate enterprise founded in 2010 reached a staggering private market valuation of 47 billion dollars under the backing of the SoftBank Vision Fund before a disastrous attempt at an initial public offering in 2019 exposed massive operating losses and corporate governance failures that ultimately forced out its eccentric founder.