The Traderszone Network

Consumer watchdog group finds damning evidence payday lending trade group Consumer Credit Research Foundation, funded research favorable to the industry—and helped edit it.

Short-term bond yields spiked Wednesday morning and fed fund futures rose 2 points.

Asian shares stumbled on Thursday after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said a December interest rate hike in the United States is a “live possibility”, sending short-term U.S. bond yields to 4-1/2-year highs and pushing the dollar broadly up. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.5 percent, led by 1.2 percent fall in Australian shares. Wall Street shares also slipped on Wednesday, with S&P 500 Index falling 0.4 percent from a three-month high touched on Tuesday, driven by losses in the energy sector after a fall in oil prices.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday pointed to a possible December interest rate “liftoff” but said rates would rise only slowly from then on to nurture the U.S. economic recovery. In her first public comments since the Fed’s meeting last week Yellen laid out what now appears the base case at the U.S. central bank – that low unemployment, continued growth and faith in a coming return of inflation means the country is ready for higher interest rates.

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Facebook Inc posted surprisingly strong profit and revenue growth as the world’s largest social network grew even larger, with a spike in mobile users and advertising that lifted its stock to an all-time high. The company on Wednesday reported audience numbers that suggest it is poised to take on mainstream media as an advertising force, helping investors to overlook Facebook’s huge spending on hiring and building data centers. Facebook now has 8 billion video views per day from 500 million people, compared with 4 billion views in April.

The United States formally denied a request on Wednesday to pause the review of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, a decision expected to lead to the project’s rejection by the Obama administration. TransCanada Corp’s request to the State Department for a delay was seen by many as an attempt to postpone the decision until after President Barack Obama left office and a new president more friendly to the plan took over in 2017. The White House declined to comment on the State Department’s decision.

Shares of Japanese supplier Takata Corp plunged 21 percent on Thursday, extending a sharp fall from the day before when top customer Honda Motor Co said it would stop buying a component at the heart of …