The Traderszone Network

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Thursday offered an upbeat assessment on the U.S. economy in a meeting with Senate Democrats, even as she noted risks from overseas, according to media reports. According to The Wall Street Journal, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia told reporters after a private luncheon with Yellen that she said “things are going well” for the U.S. economy. New York Senator Chuck Schumer told Bloomberg: “Her message is that the economy’s getting better but there’s still a ways to go in terms of job creation.

Visa, which earns money from both the volume and value of transactions using its cards, said total volume increased to $1.90 trillion from $1.84 trillion. Visa lost its right to process domestic payments in Russia in the middle of last year when Moscow hit back after the imposition of Western sanctions over its role in Ukraine. Visa reaffirmed its revenue and margin forecasts for 2015 after taking into account an expected 2 percentage point negative impact from changes in foreign exchange rates. About 60 percent of Visa’s transaction volumes are outside the United States.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told Reuters it was urging potential informants to call its hotline at 1-888-327-4236, promising legal protection. “We encourage all individuals with information about the manufacture or testing of Takata air bag inflators, or who have knowledge of possible defects or any wrongdoing by the company, to make this information available to NHTSA,” agency spokesman Gordon Trowbridge said.

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Colleen McCullough is likely Australia’s best-known writer, but one Australian daily thought her weight was more important than her work.

Among the companies whose shares are expected to see active trade in Friday’s session are Chevron, MasterCard, and Eli Lilly.
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Charles Calomiris suggests that the Fed will probably need to raise rates this year:

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Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

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