Bloomberg It usually doesn’t work this way: stocks vaulting to records, and bearish traders getting more aggressive. Lately, it has. The S&P 500 Index has climbed 7.9 percent since January, including its biggest gain since April in the just-completed week. At the same time, short interest as a proportion of total shares outstanding has also expanded, rising by 0.3 percentage …

Dubai / Emirates Business SWIFT announces on Sunday that Mashreq Bank has signed up for its global payments innovation (gpi) service, to become the first bank in the Middle East to join this international initiative. The bank will be joining forces with 100 leading banks globally. SWIFT gpi dramatically improves the customer experience in cross-border payments by increasing the speed, …

Dubai / Emirates Business Noor Bank, a leading Shari’a-compliant bank in the UAE, announced that it joined the region’s prominent financial, legal and insurance institutions as a Gold Sponsor at the latest edition of the Bonds, Loans & Sukuk Middle East conference. Organised by GFC Media Group, the region’s largest finance and investment conference convenes high-profile issuers, investors, bankers, legal …