Strong trading results, rather than lending, was the driving force behind solid earnings reported by large US banks Thursday, as executives expressed measured optimism about the prospects for President Donald Trump's pro-growth agenda.

U.S. President Donald Trump reversed himself Wednesday and said China is not manipulating its currency to gain a trade advantage.

Supply and demand in the oil market are close to matching up, the IEA said Thursday, as landmark OPEC-led production cuts are mitigated by rising US supply and slipping worldwide demand growth.

The compliance rate with the agreement among OPEC members and some non-members, including Russia, "has been impressive", the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its monthly oil market report, giving a lift to oil prices.

Saudi Arabia raised $9 billion in its first global Islamic bond issue, the government announced on Thursday, a move analysts say could ease pressure on foreign reserves.

The sale of Islamic bonds, known as sukuks, comes after the kingdom in October turned to the conventional global debt market for the first time, raising $17.5 billion in a bond issue.

European airplane manufacturer ATR says it has signed a deal with Iran Air for 20 aircraft with an option for 20 more.

ATR spokesman David Vargas confirmed the deal for the 20 ATR-600s, a twin-propeller aircraft, were signed on Thursday. He declined to offer a value for the deal.

The 50 largest U.S. companies, including Apple, Microsoft and Wal-Mart, are parking about $1.6 trillion in offshore tax havens to reduce their U.S. tax burden, according to a study published Wednesday. 

Poverty-fighting organization Oxfam America said the sum for 2015 was a $200 billion increase over the prior year. The report cites the companies' own data.

Wall Street stocks fell early Tuesday as uncertainty over Syria weighed on investor sentiment, while shares of United Continental tumbled amid public outrage over the forcible removal of a passenger from a flight.

Sales of Ivanka Trump's clothing collection soared by nearly 61 percent in 2016, the company that manufactures products for the president's daughter's line and other brands said on Monday.

The figures from the G-III Apparel Group cover wholesale revenue from February 2016 through January 2017, the company said in a recently released annual report.

Turkey's electronics manufacturer Vestel said Monday it is in talks to buy the television unit of Japan's Toshiba but declined to predict at this point whether a deal will actually be reached. 

The former chairman of an Australian wheat firm was fined Aus$50,000 (US$37,500) Monday and banned from managing a corporation for five years over the payment of huge kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.