NEW YORK: Wall Street resumed trading yesterday with shares moving lower after monster storm Sandy forced a two-day closure due to weather for the first time since 1888, but US gasoline futures surged in the face of potentially long-term supply disruptions at the East Coast’s second-largest refinery.
The storm left swaths of the region crippled by flooding and power outages, suggesting lower fuel consumption. But gasoline futures for November hit their highest level in more than two weeks as traders scrambled to cover positions ahead of the contract’s expiry.
US lumber futures soared on expectations for increased demand amid concerns that a Phillips 66 refinery in Linden, New Jersey, could shut for an extended period after Sandy cut power to the plant that produces 238,000 barrels a day of fuel.
The storm, which killed at least 50 people, may cause up to $ 15 billion in insured losses, according to one disaster-modeling company. Traders said speculators were behind much of the buying in lumber futures as they anticipated demand to rise.
Contracts for November, January and March lumber futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange rose by the daily trading limit of $ 10 per thousand board feet and remained locked at those levels, effectively shutting down trading.
Markets were expected to be volatile, with light volume as many traders remained unable to get to their offices or work from home because of power outages and no or limited public transit across the region.
“Liquidity remains very light in equities as there are a lot of empty seats on the Street,” said Dave Lutz, a Baltimore-based trader with Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.
“We’re also seeing some outsized moves.”
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 35.19 points, or 0.27 percent, at 13,072.02. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 3.56 points, or 0.25 percent, at 1,408.38.
The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.66 percent, or 19.62 points, at 2,968.33.
MSCI’s all-country world equity index was down 0.12 percent at 328.71, on track for its first monthly loss since May. The index has gained more than 10 percent so far this year.
In Europe, stocks dipped after a mixed batch of corporate earnings, pressured by heavyweight British oil and gas firm BG Group, which warned of no production growth next year.
The FTSEurofirst 300 closed down a provisional 0.5 percent at 1,097.54. BG slumped 13.7 percent to 1,147.5 pence, the biggest loser on Britain’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index.
Crude oil gained, with Brent crude rising above $ 109 a barrel. Brent for December delivery was up 2 cents at $ 109.10. US light sweet crude oil rose 68 cents to$86.36 a barrel.
Bond prices rose. The benchmark 10-year US Treasury note was up 5/32 in price to yield 1.70 percent.
The euro edged up against the dollar and headed toward its third straight month of gains, but uncertainty about the heavily indebted euro-zone economies was set to limit further strength.
The euro rose 0.07 percent against the dollar to $ 1.2965.
Shares fall, oil rises in wake of Sandy
Shares fall, oil rises in wake of Sandy
Saudi-built AI takes on financial crime
- Mozn’s FOCAL reflects the Kingdom’s growing fintech ambitions
RIYADH: As financial institutions face increasingly complex threats from fraud and money laundering, technology companies are racing to build systems that can keep pace with evolving risks.
One such effort is FOCAL, an AI-powered compliance and fraud prevention platform developed by Riyadh-based enterprise artificial intelligence company Mozn.
Founded in 2017, Mozn was established with a focus on building AI technology tailored to regional market needs and regulatory environments. Over time, the company has expanded its reach beyond Saudi Arabia, developing advanced AI solutions used by financial institutions in multiple markets. It has also gained international recognition, including being listed among the World’s Top 250 Fintech Companies for the second consecutive year.
In January 2026, Mozn’s flagship product, FOCAL, was named a Category Leader in Chartis Research’s RiskTech Quadrant 2025 for both AML Transaction Monitoring and KYC (Know Your Customer) Data and Solutions, placing it among 10 companies globally to receive this designation.
Malik Alyousef, co-founder of Mozn and chief technology officer of FOCAL, told Arab News that the platform initially focused on core anti-money laundering functions when development began in 2018. These included customer screening, watchlists, and transaction monitoring to support counter-terrorism financing efforts and the detection of suspicious activity.
As financial crime tactics evolved, the platform expanded into fraud prevention. According to Alyousef, this shift introduced a more proactive model, beginning with device risk analysis and later incorporating tools such as device fingerprinting, behavioral biometrics, and transaction fraud detection.
More recently, FOCAL has moved toward platform convergence through its Financial Crime Intelligence layer, a vendor-neutral framework designed to bring together multiple systems into a single interface for investigation and reporting. The approach allows institutions to gain a consolidated view without replacing their existing technology infrastructure.
“Our architecture eliminates blind spots in financial crime detection. It gives institutions a complete view of the user journey, combining transactional and non-transactional behavioral data,” Alyousef said.
DID YOU KNOW?
• Some electronic money institutions using the platform have reported fraud reductions of up to 90 percent.
• The platform combines anti-money laundering and fraud prevention into a single financial crime intelligence system.
• FOCAL integrates with existing banking systems without requiring institutions to replace their technology stack.
Beyond its underlying architecture, Alyousef pointed to several areas where FOCAL aims to differentiate itself in a competitive market. One is its emphasis on proactive fraud prevention, which assesses risk throughout the customer lifecycle — from onboarding and login behavior to ongoing account activity — with the goal of stopping fraud before losses occur.
He described the platform as an “expert-led model,” highlighting the availability of on-the-ground support for system design, tuning, assessments, and continuous optimization throughout its use.
“FOCAL is designed to be extended,” Alyousef added, noting its adaptability and the ability for clients to customize schemas, rules, and data fields to match their business models and risk tolerance. This flexibility, he said, allows institutions to respond more quickly to emerging fraud patterns.
Alyousef also emphasized the importance of local context in the platform’s development.
“The platform incorporates regional regulatory requirements and language considerations. Global tools often struggle with local context, naming conventions and compliance nuances — we are designed specifically with these realities in mind,” he said.
FOCAL is currently used by a range of organizations, including traditional banks, digital banks, fintech firms, electronic money institutions, payment companies, and other financial service providers. Alyousef said results from live deployments have been significant, with some large EMI clients reporting fraud reductions of up to 90 percent.
“Clients benefit not only from reduced fraud losses but also from an improved customer experience, as the system minimizes unnecessary friction and false rejections,” he said. “Beyond financial services, we also work with organizations in e-commerce and telecommunications.”
Looking ahead, Alyousef said the company sees agentic AI as a key direction for the future of financial crime prevention, both in the region and globally. Mozn, he added, is investing heavily in this area to enhance investigative workflows and operational efficiency, building on the capabilities of its Financial Crime Intelligence layer.
“We are pioneers in introducing agentic AI for financial crime investigation and rule-building. Our roadmap increasingly emphasizes automation, advanced machine learning and AI-assisted workflows to improve investigator productivity and reduce false positives.”
As AI tools become more widely available, Alyousef warned that the risk of misuse by criminals is also increasing, raising the bar for defensive technologies.
“Our goal is to stay ahead of that curve and to contribute meaningfully to positioning Saudi Arabia and the region as globally competitive leaders in AI,” he said.
