Bloomberg Oil rose in New York as investors weighed a surprise increase in US stockpiles against OPEC-led efforts to reduce the global oversupply. Futures added 0.5 percent, extending the 6.8 percent gain of the previous seven sessions. US output rose for a seventh week and inventories expanded to a fresh record, government data showed Wednesday. The increase in US …

  Bloomberg Middle East international bond sales are off to the strongest ever start to a year as borrower demand for funds outstrips the firepower of local banks in an era of depressed oil prices. Hard-currency bond issuance from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which accounts for the bulk of the region’s capital markets and includes Saudi Arabia, its largest …

  Bloomberg China’s evolving means of selling government debt is masking the true extent of the government’s planned borrowing levels. The official budget deficit target is 3 percent of economic output, but that doesn’t include all government debt. One category falling outside of the forecast is off-book bonds — or special bonds as they’re known in China — whose sales …