It was a US Treasury triumph at the FT Alphaville Pub Quiz in Washington DC

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It’s sometimes hard to tell in advance how tough a given FT Alphaville Pub Quiz will be.

Plus, last night’s quizzery in the heart of Washington DC had an added twist — rather than the smörgåsbord of financial types we get in London and New York, quizzing in the US capital was always going to be an institutional affair.

So it was that 30 teams of up to four members showed up to throw down over seven rounds of intense finance, markets and economics trivia — with IMF representation on at least six of them. The event was generously hosted at the offices of the Investment Companies Institute, who kindly provided food, drinks, and even a round of questions.

Despite the IMF’s flood-the-zone approach, it was the US Treasury that provided the winning team, with The Pareto Pedants defending a strong opening to narrowly take victory.

Hot on their heels were second-placed Mind the Financing Gap — IMF and World Bank, natch — and third-placed Are We Having FUNDS Yet?, one of two teams repping the ICI.

The Pareto Pedants took 40 points out of a possible 70 — a highly respectable 57.1 per cent score. They took home winners’ mugs, T-shirts and free tickets to the upcoming FT Weekend Festival in DC.

In last place were The Econ Wizards — a two-person team that we’re reliably informed was 50 per cent marine biologist — with a total of 13 (18.5 per cent).

Luckily, they were winners too — every team got a free pub quiz pint glass courtesy of the ICI.

Could you have beaten either team? Was this, finally, a quiz that was just Too Damn Hard?

The questions that will answer those questions are below, and the comments are open.

Final scores:

1. The Pareto Pedants (40 points)

2. Mind the Financing Gap (38 points)

3. Are we having FUNDS yet? (37 points)

4. Irrationally Optimists (36 points)

4. SAISERsmalgrénous (36 points)

4. The Sudden Stops (36 points)

7. It’s Mostly Fiscal R-star (35 points)

7. Proxy Princesses (35 points)

9. The Global Imbalances (33 points)

10. Full Montei dei Paschi (32 points)

10. ICIers Just Want to Have Fun(ds) (32 points)

12. Capital Know-It-Alls (31 points)

13. HMS Transitory (30 points)

13. The Davis Folk (30 points)

15. Bond, Treasury Bond (28 points)

15. Schedule F My Life (28 points)

17. Bears in a China Shop (27 points)

17. Capital Canaries (27 points)

17. Stress Test Dummies (27 points)

20. Dechert Expert Network (ticker: DEN) (26 points)

20. ICE, ICE, where is that baby’s papers? (26 points)

20. Too Big To Fail (26 points)

23. The Pari Passu Posse (25 points)

24. Washington Quizards (24 points)

25. The Oil Fund (23 points)

26. Heterogenous Homies (22 points)

27. Capital Asset Pricing Model (18 points)

28. The Unidentified (15 points)

29. Commissioner Peirce’s Dissents (14 points)

30. The Econ Wizards (13 points)

Final scores as rectangles (some of which are looking pretty square):

Now, it’s your turn.

Two important notes before we get started:

• Answers were (hopefully) correct at time of quizzing, but if you’ve returned here from the far future they may have changed.

• The quizmaster is always right.

Answers are at the bottom — don’t cheat!

Rounds

1. The DC Universe [IMF, World Bank, Fed stuff]

2. Financial Engineering [Finance + markets]

3. Plotted [Movie round]

4. Rasters of the Universe [Picture round 1]

5. Trading Faces [Picture round 2]

6. Invest Like the Best [ICI round]

7. Closing Prices [General knowledge]

1.  The DC Universe

1. What was the name of the pseudo-bankruptcy court for governments that the IMF wanted to set up back in the early 2000s?

2. How many semi-separate institutions make up the World Bank Group?

3. Which country has contributed the most IMF managing directors?

4. What is the current percentage of Fed governors and presidents with doctorates in economics, to the nearest five per cent?

5. What, also to the nearest five per cent, was the rough percentage of Fed governors and presidents with doctorates in economics a decade ago?

6. What was the name of the international currency proposed by John Maynard Keynes in the 1940s?

7. Which US Treasury Secretary said that the US dollar was America’s currency, but Europe’s problem?

8. Which IMF managing director is watching on in the infamous picture of President Suharto signing Indonesia’s 1997 programme?

9. Who was the first person to chair both the SEC and CFTC?

10. Which letter denotes the Federal Reserve regulation that long dictated what banks could pay in interest rates on deposits?

2.  Financial Engineering

1. What company is the biggest fallen angel in history, by nominal value of bonds being downgraded to junk?

2. What product was the SEC snobby about regulating, leading to the birth of the CFTC?

3. Which private equity firm used a meme in its 2024 investor day presentation to diss its rivals?

4. What, at 17.1 per cent of total allocation, was the most popular investment class across US higher education endowments in 2023? A: Private equity

5. How much did the EU force Ireland to accept in back taxes from Apple, leading to a potential S&P credit upgrade for Dublin, to the nearest billion euros?

6. Rank these 10-year government bond yields from highest to lowest: China, Japan and Germany.

7. Which company gave its name to the doctrine that federal courts should defer to government agencies on statute interpretation, which the Supreme Court overturned last year?

8. In 2023 the SEC handed out its biggest ever whistleblower award, a cool $279mn. Which company was the subject of the case?

9. The sudden bankruptcy of which huge US company in 1970 led to the regulatory sanctification of Moody’s, S&P and Fitch as “nationally recognised” rating agencies?

10. In 2019, the Bank of England tried to estimate the impact of QE on baby-making. What was the estimated impact on the UK birth rate from a 1 percentage point drop in interest rates?

3.  Plotted

Every story is a business story.  In this round, we want you to match the financial plot to the fictional movie. Please note these are not always the entirety, or even an important part, of the plot in question.

1. Difficulty complying with a punitive tariff regime prompts a militarily-weak but populous kingdom to enlist outside aid. 

2. An erratic businessman unsuccessfully tries to leverage his fossil fuel holdings to acquire a nearby aquifer.

3. A robotics entrepreneur discovers the pitfalls of artificial general intelligence.

4. Two military veterans pivot to fishing and tech investment.

5. The West Coast property gambit of a daring real estate investor is foiled by an alien invasion.

6. Higher authorities intervene to rescue a nepo-baby banker.

7. A high-ranking rogue defence worker at a remote Asian division is terminated by HQ.

8. Circumstances drive a work-shy former music industry employee into ad-hoc employment as a ransom deliverer.

9. A treasure hunter takes a trip to the ocean, where he unsuccessfully hunts for treasure.

10. Market manipulation and insider trading by two former employees bankrupts a venerable commodities broker.

4.  Rasters of the Universe

(High-res here)

5.  Trading Faces

(High-res here)

6.  Invest like the best

1. When was the first mutual fund created in the US?

2. What was the name of the first money market fund?

3. The Revenue Act that allowed the birth of 401(k)s came into being which year?

4. Who is popularly known as the father of the 401(k)?

5. To the nearest trillion, how large was the US mutual fund and ETF industry by assets under management as of the end of December 2024?

6. Generously assuming an average non-stop reading speed of 250 words a minute – with no toilet breaks, food or sleep – how long would it take you to read the entire Dodd-Frank Act, to the nearest hour?

7. At the same speed, how long would it take you to read the Investment Company Act of 1940, to the nearest hour?

8. What joint agency rulemaking from Dodd-Frank is still not finalized, 15 years on?

9. How many separate federal agencies are involved in the rulemaking? A: Six

10. Which country launched what is now considered the first ever investment fund?

7.  Closing Prices

1. Nvidia recently suffered the single biggest one-day drop of market capitalisation of any company in history. To the nearest $10bn, how big was it?

2. Rank these cryptocurrencies in order of theoretical “market cap”, from highest to lowest, at Monday’s NYSE close: Fartcoin, $Trump, $Melania and BONK.

3. Blackstone’s latest Christmas video features chief executive Stephen Schwarzman cutting what type of vegetable [edit: ok biologically it’s a fruit]?

4. Continuing the food theme — what’s the name of the SEC-sued crypto bro who recently paid $6.2mn for a banana stuck to a wall? 

5. What’s the name of Jared Kushner’s private equity firm?

6. The short seller Nate Anderson, founded Hindenburg Research, recently retired. What is the name of the Indian conglomerate that was one of his biggest targets?

7. To the nearest hundred thousand, how many bitcoin has Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy now amassed?

8. Which former Fed chair gave his name to the rule that prohibits proprietary trading at banks?

9. And as we approach the end — to put Americans’ famed worldliness to the test: what’s Europe’s largest company by market cap?

10. And what’s Europe’s second-largest company by market cap?

…and that’s it!

Let us descend the Ladder of Revelation…

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Rounds

1. The DC Universe [IMF, World Bank, Fed stuff]

2. Financial Engineering [Finance + markets]

3. Plotted [Movie round]

4. Rasters of the Universe [Picture round 1]

5. Trading Faces [Picture round 2]

6. Invest Like the Best [ICI round]

7. Closing Prices [General knowledge]

1.  The DC Universe

1. What was the name of the pseudo-bankruptcy court for governments that the IMF wanted to set up back in the early 2000s? A: Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism

2. How many semi-separate institutions make up the World Bank Group? A: Five (IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA and ICSID)

3. Which country has contributed the most IMF managing directors? A: France (five)

4. What is the current percentage of Fed governors and presidents with doctorates in economics, to the nearest five per cent? A: 53 per cent (55 per cent)

5. What, also to the nearest five per cent, was the rough percentage of Fed governors and presidents with doctorates in economics a decade ago? A: 70 per cent

6. What was the name of the international currency proposed by John Maynard Keynes in the 1940s? A: Bancor

7. Which US Treasury Secretary said that the US dollar was America’s currency, but Europe’s problem? A: John Connally

8. Which IMF managing director is watching on in the infamous picture of President Suharto signing Indonesia’s 1997 programme? A: Michel Camdessus

9. Who was the first person to chair both the SEC and CFTC? A: Mary Shapiro

10. Which letter denotes the Federal Reserve regulation that long dictated what banks could pay in interest rates on deposits? A: Q

2.  Financial Engineering

1. What company is the biggest fallen angel in history, by nominal value of bonds being downgraded to junk? A: Ford Motor

2. What product was the SEC snobby about regulating, leading to the birth of the CFTC? A: Pork belly futures

3. Which private equity firm used a meme in its 2024 investor day presentation to diss its rivals? A: Apollo

4. What, at 17.1 per cent of total allocation, was the most popular investment class across US higher education endowments in 2023? A: Private equity

5. How much did the EU force Ireland to accept in back taxes from Apple, leading to a potential S&P credit upgrade for Dublin, to the nearest billion euros? A: €13bn

6. Rank these 10-year government bond yields from highest to lowest: China, Japan and Germany. A: Germany, China, Japan

7. Which company gave its name to the doctrine that federal courts should defer to government agencies on statute interpretation, which the Supreme Court overturned last year? A: Chevron

8. In 2023 the SEC handed out its biggest ever whistleblower award, a cool $279mn. Which company was the subject of the case? A: Ericsson

9. The sudden bankruptcy of which huge US company in 1970 led to the regulatory sanctification of Moody’s, S&P and Fitch as “nationally recognised” rating agencies? A: Penn Central

10. In 2019, the Bank of England tried to estimate the impact of QE on baby-making. What was the estimated impact on the UK birth rate from a 1 percentage point drop in interest rates? A: 2 per cent.

3.  Plotted

Every story is a business story.  In this round, we want you to match the financial plot to the fictional movie. Please note these are not always the entirety, or even an important part, of the plot in question.

1. Difficulty complying with a punitive tariff regime prompts a militarily-weak but populous kingdom to enlist outside aid.  A: A Bug’s Life

2. An erratic businessman unsuccessfully tries to leverage his fossil fuel holdings to acquire a nearby aquifer. A: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

3. A robotics entrepreneur discovers the pitfalls of artificial general intelligence. A: Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

4. Two military veterans pivot to fishing and tech investment. A: Forrest Gump

5. The West Coast property gambit of a daring real estate investor is foiled by an alien invasion. A: Superman

6. Higher authorities intervene to rescue a nepo-baby banker. A: It’s a Wonderful Life

7. A high-ranking rogue defence worker at a remote Asian division is terminated by HQ. A: Apocalypse Now

8. Circumstances drive a work-shy former music industry employee into ad-hoc employment as a ransom deliverer. A: The Big Lebowski

9. A treasure hunter takes a trip to the ocean, where he unsuccessfully hunts for treasure. A: Titanic

10. Market manipulation and insider trading by two former employees bankrupts a venerable commodities broker. A: Trading Places

4.  Rasters of the Universe

(High-res here)

1. A: Australia

2. A: South Korea

3. A: Canada

4. A: Japan

5. A: Jamaica

6. A: Malta

7. A: Mexico

8. A: Nigeria

9. A: United Kingdom (accept England or Britain)

10. A: Trinidad & Tobago

11. A: Thailand

12. A: United States

13. A: Panama

14. A: China

15. A: New Zealand

5.  Trading Faces

(High-res here)

1. A: RFK Jr.

2. A: Vivek Ramaswamy

3. A: Kyrsten Sinema

4. A: Claudia Sheinbaum

5. A: Pete Buttigieg

6. A: Anthony Scaramucci

7. A: Boris Johnson

8. A: Lael Brainard

9. A: Melania Trump

10. A: Steven Mnuchin

11. A: Justin Trudeau

12. A: Fidel Castro

13. A: Bernie Sanders

14. A: Jill Biden

15. A: Tulsi Gabbard

6.  Invest like the best

1. When was the first mutual fund created in the US? A: 1924

2. What was the name of the first money market fund? A: Reserve Primary Fund (accept Reserve fund)

3. The Revenue Act that allowed the birth of 401(k)s came into being which year? A: 1978

4. Who is popularly known as the father of the 401(k)? A: Ted Benna

5. To the nearest trillion, how large was the US mutual fund and ETF industry by assets under management as of the end of December 2024? A: $39tn.

6. Generously assuming an average non-stop reading speed of 250 words a minute – with no toilet breaks, food or sleep – how long would it take you to read the entire Dodd-Frank Act, to the nearest hour? A: 24 ½ hours (25 hours)

7. At the same speed, how long would it take you to read the Investment Company Act of 1940, to the nearest hour? A: Four hours

8. What joint agency rulemaking from Dodd-Frank is still not finalized, 15 years on? A: Executive incentive-based compensation

9. How many separate federal agencies are involved in the rulemaking? A: Six

10. Which country launched what is now considered the first ever investment fund? A: The Netherlands (Eendragt Maakt Magt in 1774)

7.  Closing Prices

1. Nvidia recently suffered the single biggest one-day drop of market capitalisation of any company in history. To the nearest $10bn, how big was it? A: $589bn ($590bn)

2. Rank these cryptocurrencies in order of theoretical “market cap”, from highest to lowest, at Monday’s NYSE close: Fartcoin, $Trump, $Melania and BONK. A: $Trump > BONK >  Fartcoin > $Melania

3. Blackstone’s latest Christmas video features chief executive Stephen Schwarzman cutting what type of vegetable [edit: ok biologically it’s a fruit]? A: A cucumber

4. Continuing the food theme — what’s the name of the SEC-sued crypto bro who recently paid $6.2mn for a banana stuck to a wall?  A: Justin Sun

5. What’s the name of Jared Kushner’s private equity firm? A: Affinity Partners

6. The short seller Nate Anderson, founded Hindenburg Research, recently retired. What is the name of the Indian conglomerate that was one of his biggest targets? A: Adani

7. To the nearest hundred thousand, how many bitcoin has Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy now amassed? A: 471,107

8. Which former Fed chair gave his name to the rule that prohibits proprietary trading at banks? A: Paul Volcker

9. And as we approach the end — to put Americans’ famed worldliness to the test: what’s Europe’s largest company by market cap? A: Novo Nordisk

10. And what’s Europe’s second-largest company by market cap? A: Louis Vuitton-Moët-Hennessy

As ever, threats / praise / sponsorship offers to alphaville@ft.com.