Bloomberg The head of Colombia’s state oil company Ecopetrol said he doesn’t see the need for the government to sell another stake in the company — an idea the finance minister supports. The ministry is weighing the sale of an 8.5 percent stake in Ecopetrol, worth about $3.6 billion. CEO Felipe Bayon said such a sale could take as long …

Bloomberg Despite sitting on top of the world’s largest crude reserves, the reach of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company is receding. In the 1980s Petroleos de Venezuela SA started an international expansion with the objective of finding new outlets for its growing oil production. The company bought Citgo Petroleum Corp. in the US, leased the Isla refinery in Curacao, bought a …

Bloomberg US stocks edged lower as investors struggled to find inspiration after a torrid start to the year. The dollar rallied for a fifth day. The S&P 500 Index fell 0.1 percent. Equities opened lower amid a lack of progress on the US-China trade deal before briefly erasing losses on home-sales and service-industries data that beat estimates. General Electric Co. …