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 …