Reuters Most Middle East stock markets traded in narrow ranges on Sunday while Saudi Arabia was dragged down by several major blue chips. The Saudi index dropped 0.7 percent as Al Rajhi Bank lost 1.0 percent and miner Ma’aden sank 1.9 percent. Petrochemical producer Saudi Basic Industries fell 0.7 percent. Insurers were roughly evenly split between gainers and losers after …

Bloomberg With the European Central Bank’s (ECB) next policy update less than two weeks away, the institution’s chief is expressing both confidence and patience about achieving its inflation goal. “We are confident that as the conditions will continue to improve, the inflation rate will gradually converge in a self-sustained manner, as we’ve defined many times, and in a durable way …

DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s central bank may raise the maximum loan-to-deposit ratio for commercial banks if that is needed to help the economy, central bank governor Ahmed al-Kholifey told Al Arabiya television. Kholifey was speaking on the sidelines of meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Washington. The central bank last raised the ratio in February 2016, to …