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It’s quarterly report time for US stocks and companies continue to beat expectations even as earnings are falling? Their apparent success is explained partly by the fact that earnings reporting is a shell game, partly by the fact that not all businesses and industries are doing equally well, and partly by really bad earnings forecasting by the “experts.” This insightful article reviews just how crazy the whole earnings game is.

Although a mortgage is a common way to purchase a home it isn't the only way to purchase a house. If you think outside the box, you can possibly pull off a home purchase without a costly loan. Below are 4 novel ideas.

Should you keep renting, or should you buy a home? It's an age-old dilemma nearly every American adult wrestles with at some point. No one wants to throw their hard-earned cash away on rent payments they'll never see again when they could be investing in a home that will grow in value and potentially provide a nice return one day. If that line of thinking sounds familiar, Todd Sinai, a real-estate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, would like to stop you right there.

Over long periods the inflation-adjusted price of homes in the U.S. has tended to increase by a little more than 1% per year. That doesn't mean owning a home is a good way to make a 1% real return on your money though. This article explains why.

You won’t be able to tell the story of the 21st century without India and China as its main protagonists. Just look at the numbers in the two animated charts provided in this article.

Retirement can last 30 years or more so here's what you need to do now (or by age 30 at the latest) to maintain your lifestyle once you stop working.

I think the Chinese are devaluing the yuan in slow motion but when they realize that the shadow banking system will tighten credit at the worst possible time - just when the PBOC is actively fighting such tighter credit conditions - they are likely to devalue the yuan by a much larger and less orderly amount.

As of the end of 2015, there were over 15,600 mutual funds, 11,000 hedge funds and 2,100 ETFs...[which] account for almost 50% more...than there are individual stocks and bonds. The paradox of choice makes it extremely difficult for investors to wade through this sea of complexity, but it also increases the temptation to make changes to a portfolio. People have a hard time sitting still in the face of this sheer number of choices, even when there are proven benefits from inaction with your investments. [Let me explain.]

35% of all Americans have debt in collections and this is happening during the current supposed “economic recovery”. It begs the question: "What are things going to look like when the economy becomes extremely unstable once again?"

One of the challenges of analyzing trends in the gold price and the gold market is the effect of fluctuating currency exchange rates on the price. What we think of as the "gold price" is really just the gold price measured in U.S. dollars. What is needed is a single metric to look at for a currency-neutral measure of the gold price that removes the effect of the U.S. dollar and I have identified a ratio that does just that and it reveals that one should maintain confidence that the gold bull market will continue, and not to be overly worried by the recent correction in the price of gold and mining stocks. Word count: 532