Once upon a time, there was a lot of optimism that the blockchain — the technology underlying Bitcoin — would help the finance industry deal with a big headache: post-trade processing, the often long and arduous task of making sure money and securities change hands and everybody knows who owes what to whom. The problem might yet get solved, ...

  Reuters Stock markets in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar jumped on Monday as crude oil prices shot to their highest since mid-2015, but the uptrend in Saudi Arabia lost steam as investors anticipated the state budget. Brent crude soared as high as $57.89 per barrel on Monday morning in response to the weekend deal between OPEC and non-OPEC ...

  BEIJING / AP Stocks fell on Monday ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting that is expected to raise US interest rates, while oil prices jumped after several non-OPEC countries agreed to join the cartel in cutting output. KEEPING SCORE: Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.3 percent to 6,933 and Germany’s DAX shed 0.2 percent to 11,186. France’s CAC 40 ...