DUBAI / Reuters Egypt’s stock market outperformed its Gulf peers on Wednesday on the back of strong first-quarter earnings and positive news from a real estate developer, while Saudi Arabia saw increased activity as traders took positions ahead of Ramadan. Egypt’s index rose 1.0 percent as real estate firm Sixth of October Development (SODIC) jumped 4.2 percent to a four-month …

Bloomberg The UK government sold its last remaining shares in Lloyds Banking Group Plc, bringing Britain’s biggest mortgage lender back into full private ownership almost a decade after it was bailed out in the depths of the financial crisis. The Treasury made a profit of 894 million pounds ($1.2 billion) on its original 20.3 billion-pound investment after disposing of its …

Bloomberg Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is increasingly turning to the forwards market for currency intervention, as a banking system already flooded with cash limits its ability to act in the spot market. RBI bought $8 billion of foreign currency in the forwards market in March, latest official data released this month showed, as the rupee capped its best first-quarter …