The five questions from Friday, August 28, 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 A $72 billion Massachusetts-based maker of stents and heart devices disclosed this week that criminals had struck its computer networks, disrupting operations and sending the shares lower. What single word names a hostile attempt to breach and disrupt a firm's systems?
Answer: CYBERATTACK(11 letters)
2 A July inflation print released on Aug. 26 showed the Fed's preferred price gauge up 0.2% on the month and 3.3% on the year once food and energy are stripped out; stocks slipped slightly. What one-word adjective labels that ex-food-and-energy version of an index?
Answer: CORE(4 letters)
3 Shares of this Mountain View, California software company, best known for TurboTax and QuickBooks, sank about 11% after management's fiscal 2027 outlook disappointed investors despite a solid quarter just reported. Name the company.
Answer: INTUIT(6 letters)
4 In corporate finance, this is the level of sales or output at which total revenue exactly equals total costs, so a business makes neither profit nor loss. What one-word term names that point?
Answer: BREAKEVEN(9 letters)
The point at which revenues exactly cover costs, so profit is zero. In bond markets, the inflation rate at which an inflation-linked bond and a nominal bond return the same.
5 With Q2 reporting wrapped up in late August, companies emerge from their restricted window and resume taking their own shares out of the market, a move that lifts earnings per share by shrinking the share count. What one-word term names this practice?
Answer: BUYBACK(7 letters)
A company repurchasing its own shares on the market, reducing the count outstanding and so raising earnings per share even if total earnings are unchanged.