Reuters Saudi Arabia’s equities index firmed on Wednesday because of strong oil prices while Qatar fell to its lowest close since January 2016 after index compiler FTSE’s mid-year review hurt some stocks. Brent oil was around $53.50 a barrel, slightly above its level when the Saudi market traded on Tuesday last week, just before it closed for long Eid al-Adha …

Bloomberg Mario Draghi’s silence on the future of quantitative easing is complicating a key aspect of the European Central Bank’s policy process. The ECB president and his colleagues typically back up shifts in strategy with their economic projections, which are based on market indicators that include expectations for future policy. Except that less than four months before the current asset-purchase …

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan should stop being obsessed with its 2 percent inflation target given prices and interest rates around the world remain subdued, says the former currency chief at the Ministry of Finance. The world’s third-largest economy has recovered enough for the central bank to scale back stimulus policy to give itself some room to maneuver should conditions …