Reuters Major Gulf stock markets were mixed in quiet trade on Wednesday although some second-tier Saudi petrochemical stocks rose sharply after oil prices climbed overnight. The main Saudi index traded higher for much of the day but closed 0.2 percent lower as Saudi Electricity, which had risen after last week’s state budget for 2017 promised to raise electricity tariffs, …

  London / AFP European stocks turned flat on Wednesday but London coasted higher on the back of a Santa Rally in subdued trade after a long Christmas holiday. The British capital’s benchmark FTSE 100 index of top blue-chip firms won 0.4 percent from last Friday’s close, as traders returned from a four-day holiday weekend. Frankfurt and Paris, which had …

  Bloomberg South Korea’s antitrust regulator slapped a record 1.03 trillion won ($853 million) fine on Qualcomm Inc. for violating antitrust laws, the latest in a string of government actions that threaten the US chipmaker’s most profitable business. The South Korean Fair Trade Commission said on Wednesday that the company licensed its key patents only to mobile-phone makers and didn’t …