Total recall

A yacht rock staple and a top ten hit, it’s hard not to vibe with the Little River Band’s Reminiscing. Released in ’78, it had you feelin’ nostalgic even back then—a feeling that’s even sweeter now as you reminisce about those times today.

We all know how powerful memory is and now scientists have figured out the role it plays in leading us to avoid certain foods. Hint…if you’ve ever had food poisoning, you’ll know exactly what they’re talking about. 

Sometimes, you want to forget ;)

(Love nostalgia? Play today’s trivia below for a chance to win a $25 Tim Hortons eGift Card!)

IN THE NEWS

Carney woos seniors, Poilievre pushes LNG

The Conservative and Liberal leaders headed west yesterday, making campaign stops around British Columbia in an effort to earn their share of the province’s 43 federal seats in the Apr. 28 election.

Mark Carney met with B.C. premier David Eby, despite Eby already pledging his support for B.C.’s incumbent NDP candidates, including NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.

Speaking from Victoria, Carney promised to designate up to 15 new urban parks, along with 10 new national parks and marine conservation areas, saying his government would "pursue a bold new nature strategy with smart approaches to preserve our natural habitat and to use our finite financial resources to maximum impact."

He also pledged to allow seniors to more easily draw from their savings and would increase the guaranteed income supplement for low-income retirees for up to a year.

Pierre Poilievre visited Terrace, B.C., where he renewed his promise to speed up ten major resource projects that have stalled while waiting for federal environmental reviews to proceed.

Among the promises was expediting approval for LNG Canada Phase II, a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) project earmarked for Northern British Columbia that would allow Canada to ship LNG overseas.

MONEY

Sticking it out during volatile times

Retirees or near-retirees tend to feel rapid fluctuations in the stock market more than others, given the perception that there’s less time to right the ship when the market turns south.

Still, if anything the last week of trading has shown, it’s that panic-selling is risky business.

Between Wednesday and Friday last week, the Dow shed over 4,000 points, but remained largely flat on Monday. Then yesterday, dip-buyers flooded the market, with the Dow gaining back 1,400 points in the early hours of trading, only to surrender almost all of it before the closing bell.

Anyone who sold during after-hours over the weekend and then bought back in on Tuesday afternoon essentially lost out twice.

“First and foremost, absolutely avoid panic selling,” said Tony Maiorino, head of RBC’s Family Office Services team. “If you miss the best days, it dramatically impacts that rate of return.”

Maiorino and other experts consider this one of the most important rules of portfolio management, especially for those who think they have shorter time horizons.

It’s certainly understandable to be concerned about the state of a retirement portfolio when the market is tremoring. However, it’s pivotal to speak to an advisor during times like these, rather than going it alone and making moves that could be more disruptive than the market itself.

WHAT UP WEDNESDAYS

Linguistic skills linked to longevity

A study published earlier this year in Psychological Science leveraged data from the Berlin Aging Study to investigate whether certain verbal attributes contributed to the longevity of patients included in the data.

The researchers, led by Paolo Ghisletta of the University of Geneva, measured the “perceptual speed, episodic memory, verbal fluency, and verbal knowledge” of 500 patients that were over 70 years old when the study began in 1990.

Ghisletta and co. determined there was an apparent link between verbal fluency and increased longevity when looking at verbal fluency as made up of two subcategories: word beginnings and word categories. The former measured how many words a patient could name that start with a letter or sound, such as “s", in 90 seconds; the latter measured how many different words of a category such as “animals” they could name.

The more a patient could name, the more cognitively resilient they appeared, and the longer they lived. Being able to name more also appeared to be—at least in part—the consequence of reading more regularly than others.

The study is correlative at best, but it suggests behaviour that forces cognitive flexing (such as reading books) can have a positive impact on how long a person lives.

TRAVEL

Victory Cruises set to relaunch

Victory Cruise Lines was acquired by American Queen Voyages in 2019, but the company shutdown shortly thereafter. Its crown jewel vessels—Victory I and Victory II—are being revived for Great Lakes and Canada voyages this month, after founder John Waggoner decided the market was ripe for Canada and U.S. travellers.

“I think what we find is that a lot of our guests have traveled all over the world, and now they are looking for something that's at home,” he tol.

The first cruise will be hosted by Waggoner and his wife Claudette aboard Victory I, departing from Portland, Maine to Toronto, Canada on April 16. Victory II will be christened on May 12 in Chicago.

There are several itineraries in store for the refurbished Victory cruises, ranging from nine to 14 nights. One will sail all five Great Lakes, departing from Chicago or Milwaukee and making port in Toronto (or vice versa). Another includes all five Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, departing from Chicago and docking in Montreal. Yet another will sail from Chicago to Thunder Bay, Ont., and will include an overnight stay at Michigan’s Mackinac Island.

NATURE

Seeing red

If you’re a gardener or birder or both, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that most hummingbird feeders you can buy tend to be red, begging the question: are they attracted to red things?

In fact, they are! Anything on the red to yellow spectrum piques their interest due to an increased visual sensitivity at this wavelength.

That said, it doesn’t mean you should dye the nectar inside the feeder red; the feeder colour itself is enough, along with certain types of flowers, to get these beautiful and some-say-impossible birds to visit and help pollinate your garden.

“[Hummingbirds] have amazing memories,” says Erika Zambello, communications director for Audubon Florida. “They generally return to the same area in which they hatched, and once they find patches of flowers or feeders, they may return year after year.”

Then there’s the standard advice; for example, make sure to minimize the use of pesticides if you want them to visit. They’ll actually eat insects and spiders for you if your garden is welcoming enough to convince them to fly by, which includes having twigs and sticks wedged in various areas for them to perch and survey the garden.

You can read on here for additional tips and tricks to attract hummingbirds.

WEEKLY POLL RESULTS

Here’s what you said

CURIOSITIES

Budweiser rewards goalies Ovechkin didn’t score on

Alex Ovechkin made history the other day by eclipsing one of Wayne Gretzky’s most coveted NHL scoring records: the most goals by a single player in NHL history.

The record is now 895 goals and counting, with the Great Eight showing no clear signs of slowing down after yet another 40-plus-goal season.

895 is a lot of goals, and it opens up a whole host of great hockey trivia questions, including one Budweiser found a creative way of exploiting: which goalies played against Ovi, but never surrendered a goal to him?

The New York Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin was among that small list, ironically up until the hot potato landed in his lap—A.K.A, the 895th goal went in his net.

There now remain just 28 goalies who played against Ovechkin on his journey to 895 who didn’t allow him to get one by, including former Toronto Maple Leaf, Curtis Joseph, who posted on X revealing the gift Budweiser sent him.

“Congrats to the greatest goal scorer of all time ⁦@ovi8⁩ . Feeling very lucky to have NOT been a part of it! 2 shots, 0 goals,” his post read, with an image of a commemorative zero alcohol Budweiser can in a box that said “ZERO of 895.”

How many of the other 27 can you name?

STAKE TRIVIA

Puffin’ what stuff?

Known for their high-concept fantasy programs (hmmm, high on what? 😂) like H.R. Pufnstuf, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, and Land of the Lost, Sid and Marty Krofft were titans of children’s TV.

As it turns out, today is Marty Krofft’s birthday, so we’ll be quizzing you on some of their iconic shows with today’s trivia! Complete the game and earn a shot at a $25 Tim Hortons eGift Card ;)

Winner will be notified tomorrow afternoon—keep an eye on your inbox!

Have a great day ahead Staker!

Today’s issue written by Michael Cowan, Joey Cowan, and Maureen Norman.


*SEE FULL STAKE TRIVIA CONTEST RULES HERE.