Book Description
The U.S. government began standardizing and regulating financial reporting in 1929 when the stock market crash made it painfully clear that businesses often made absurd claims and that investors were either gullible, unable to verify information, or both. Now, financial reports are used by a company’s management to measure profitability (or lack of it), optimize operations and guide the company, by banks and other lenders to gauge the company’s financial health, and by institutional or individual investors interested in purchasing stock.
Unless you’re financially savvy, annual reports with all those figures, frustrating footnotes, and fine print are boring and intimidating. However, once you have a fundamental knowledge of finance and its basic terminology, you can find the juicy parts. Reading Financial Reports For Dummies by Lita Epstein, a teacher of online financial courses and author of Trading for Dummies, gets you up to speed so you can:
- Go past the prose that can maximize the positive and minimize the negative and get information in dollars and cents
- Get an overview from the big three—the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows
- Understand the lingo and read between the lines
- Calculate basics like PE, Dividend Payout Ratio, ROS, ROA, ROE, Operating Margin, and Net Margin
It pays for investors to be somewhat skeptical instead of gullible. Pressured to please Wall Street, companies are sometimes tempted to use “creative” accounting. You’ll discover how to:
- Detect red flags (that, unfortunately, aren’t emphasized in red) such as lawsuits, changes in accounting methods, and obligations to retirees and future retirees
- Understand the different reporting requirements for public companies and private companies with various types of business structures
- Analyze a company’s cash flow, a prime indicator of its financial health
- Scrutinize deals such as mergers, acquisitions, liquidations and other major changes in key assets
Organized so you can start where you’re comfortable and proceed at your own pace, Reading Financial Reports for Dummies helps managers prepare annual reports and use financial reporting to budget more efficiently and helps investors base their decisions on knowledge instead of hype. Whether you’re in business or in the stock market, knowledge is always an asset.
Customer Reviews:
Even Better Than I Had Hoped..........2007-07-14
I've never taken the time to leave feedback about any books I buy, but this book I really got a lot out of, and highly recommend.
Although the description of the book seems to mostly focus on reading financial reports in order to evaluate companies you might want to invest in by buying stock, I bought the book because I wanted to be much more comfortable with reading - moreover analyzing and understanding - financial statements for business management purposes.
Boy, I was NOT disappointed! By reading the book and constantly referring to the financial statements of 2 companies (Mattel and Hasbro), and interpreting, analyzing and comparing the numbers, I have really learned quite a lot about how to manage by the numbers. Now, when I look at financial statements, I know what every line means, I know what I'm looking for, how to interpret the numbers and changes in the numbers and/or ratios over time - I'm truly just as pleased as punch! This book is worth every penny you pay for it.
And, because the author also tosses in a lot of revealing and useful information about analyzing financial statements to evaluate a company and the worth of its stock, I received quite an education there as well. Very eye opening.
Whether you're a business owner, manager, accountant or stock investor, if you're even considering getting this book to enhance your knowledge, get it. It's a very, very good book. I kept a highlighter and some post it notes at my side, you may want to do the same. In any event, after reading this book (which, by the way is NOT a 'dry' read) you will have deep knowledge of financial statements - balance sheet, profit and loss (income statement) and cash flow statement.
I highly recommend this book.
Learn to examine financial statements more effectively and efficiently........2007-05-28
I am a lawyer in technology, entertainment and corporate law. I bought this book for one of my children who is an undergraduate business major. After buying the book, I ended up reading the book myself. It helps the reader to review financial statements much more effectively and efficiently. It's the best book I've seen on the topic. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand what to look for and beware of in financial reports.
Excellent value ... just buy it!.......2007-03-25
I recently had to take a week long seminar about financial statements and didn't want to go in cold turkey and possibly embarass myself ... so I bought three books thru Amazon to help me learn about financial statements, this one being the most comprehensive.
I'll make this short and sweet ... this was an excellent book by any standard ... the other two books were brief and excellent overviews, but I'd have to judge Lita's (author) book as superb.
It was as if I learned detail from a text book (factual substance), but then had her sitting beside me saying ... ok, you know such and such, now this is how it really works, or this is how you apply it, or this is what it means, or this is what you need to do next, or these are the tricks of the trade only insiders know, etc. Plus her 10 real world discussions of what went wrong with certain corporations ... Enron, WorldCom/MCI, Tyco, etc., are very interesting reads.
For instance, she tells you how to go about listening to a call between analysts and corporate executives, which honestly I did not know you could do. It's this added perspective of an experienced insider's knowledge of the business that puts her above the rest ... and this being a 362 page book, which I read cover to cover, there are plenty of these types of examples.
For anyone who is not well versed in this subject matter, but WANTS to learn about it, quit pondering the purchase and just buy the book. It is money well spent ... I guarantee it.
Oh, and by the way, Lita dedicates the book to her father, who was an auditor and savings and loan examiner ... so you know she was taught plenty by ole Dad ... this stuff was in her blood from the get go, and she communicates her extensive knowledge very well.
I sincerely congratulate her on such a fine work. I enjoyed it immensely! Thank you Lita ... Jim
opening the pandora s box.......2007-02-09
reading financial report for me before is just like reading numbers but reading this book is it s not just only reading but also analyzing and decoding the numbers found in the financial reports..The authors use laymans term in order that the reader can understand the different accounting jargons.it is just __knowing yourself and knowing your investments... this book is a must for a serious investor and this book is intended for a defenceless investor who have no knowledge in checking the financial health of the company.
Reading Financial Reports for Dummies.......2007-01-10
If you know nothing about Financial Reports, this is the book for you. Everything is written in terms that you can understand without being a Chief Financial Officer.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone, whether it be career-related or for personal financial review of annual reports, insurance, etc.
Book Description
Finally, a resourceful and unique primer on financial statements that uses a creative and different approach to explain every kind of financial report a small business owner or manager needs to succeed. Through an unique visual approach, this book leads users to a clear understanding of how business scores are kept and how to interpret the results.From balance sheets, cash flow statements and income statements, learn how to understand the basic elements that will pave the way to achieving financial success.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2007-09-10
I'm in an MBA program and have had numerous undergraduate accounting classes. This book is fantastic. It is FAR superior to "How To Read A Financial Report" by John Tracy. "Financial Statements: A Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports" by Thomas R. Ittelson is clear and concise. It's the best book I've found on the subject. I highly recommend it!
A Sound Basic Review of Financials.......2007-09-07
A sound review of what I learned almost 40 years ago and have not used in about 25 years. Brought back what I learned and used years ago.
Clear, simple and extremly useful.......2007-07-19
For the person who buys stocks, this book is an absolute must. Ittelson's writing is clear and gets to the point. By the end, you will have a very good understanding of financial statements. I got interested in this book as an investor and I am very pleased with my time investment in reading this book.
Worst book I have bought yet.......2007-06-11
I bought 3 books, the one I am reviewing, "Reading Financial Reports For Dummies", and "Guide to Understanding Financial Statements". This book gives no information for beginners who are trying to learn how to understand financial statements. I read all 3 books twice, and I didn't get anything...and I mean nothing from this book. The other two were very well written. Reading Financial Reports For Dummies and The Guide to Understanding Financial Statements. I suggest not wasting your money on this book. It is basically a lot of numbers with very little explanation. It is also confusing because the definitions are different and there is no explanation why they defintions change when reading a financial report.
Good for beginners.......2007-06-07
This book would be an excellent supplement to a beginning accounting class. The author explains the material so that it is very easy to understand.
But if you've taken intermediate or advanced accounting classes, don't waste your money. There isn't anything new in this small book. It doesn't cover all areas of accounting and the areas that are covered are not in-depth. Example: There is a brief mention of straight-line deprection but nothing about salvage value and no mention about the other depreciation methods.
Book Description
A supplementary text for a variety of Business courses, including Financial Statement Analysis, Principles of Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, Investments, Personal Finance, and Financial Planning and Analysis.
Understanding Financial Statements, retains its reputation for readability, concise coverage, and accessibility while incorporating the many new requirements and changes in accounting reporting and standards. The text gives students the conceptual background and analytical tools necessary to understand and interpret business financial statements. Its ultimate goal is to improve students' ability to translate financial statement numbers into a meaningful map for business decisions and thus enable each student to approach financial statements with enhanced confidence.
Customer Reviews:
Understanding financial statements.......2007-09-26
Great book for learning accounting for the novice. Easy to understand and the problems and discussion help the learning process.
Just as advertised.......2007-09-23
I bought this book for school. It is an easy to read, comprehensive guide to understanding what goes into financial statements.
exact product at an affordable price w a smooth transaction.......2007-05-14
exact product at an affordable price w a smooth transaction
You'll keep this close to your side for years to come..........2006-02-09
I purchased the fifth edition of this book back in 1997 and still have it. I work through it, from start to finish, every three months in order to keep myself fresh and thoroughly knowledgeable about income statements, balance sheets, and cash flows. The exercises are challenging enough to require you to do a little extra research and thinking on your own, i.e., not everything in the questions can be answered by consulting the book. IMPORTANT NOTE TO PROSPECTIVE PURCHASERS OF THIS BOOK: You will have difficulty thoroughly understanding this material unless you have at least a year of financial accounting coursework under your belt. Although I already had 8 accounting courses under my belt by the time I purchased this book, it helped me understand financials like I had never understood them before. A very useful text for those interested in the analysis of, particularly, the income statement and the balance sheet.
Most confusing, wordy textbook I have ever used.......2005-10-02
I am in a graduate program and this is the first time in 16 years of education that I have ever come across such a poorly written textbook! As a previous rater stated, "The presentation of the content assumes that the reader has some knowledge of this content area and at times leaves him/her confused as to what was discussed, making it difficult to understand. Examples that are used are often incomplete and do not provide a complete picture of how statements are generated." I second his sentiment, "Too bad I could not give it zero stars." I would love to contact these individuals and their publisher and recommend they never write again. I need a book I can use again and again when my class is finished, not one I would sooner burn.
Book Description
In this project the student obtains and analyzes an annual report from a publicly traded corporation. Activities include: identifying corporate operations, gaining familiarity with the financial data presentation, recognizing trends, calculating ratios, and performing industry and primary competitor comparisons. This project takes approximately 8 to 20 hours to complete (average 10 hours).
Book Description
How to cut through the public relations jargon and analyze a company's financial health and future prospects as it's spelled out in an annual report. Sound advice for non-expert investors in the stock market. New topics covered and explained in this edition include annual reports on the Internet, materiality, and financial derivatives. Titles in the easy-to-understand Business Keys series are directed at consumers and non-professionals, with advice on saving, investing, protecting assets, and increasing wealth through prudent money management. The books define terms, cut through business jargon, speak in plain language, and take the mystery out of business.
Customer Reviews:
Succinct and Informative.......2003-06-11
This book is very succinct and the explanations for each accounting concepts are very easy to understand and easy to remember. The "Red Flags" after each concept are very useful in pointing out all the possible problems that may arise. While the strengths of this book is his conciseness, it does require you to have some basic accounting background. Otherwise, some of the explanations may seem confusing. Having said that, if i am reading an annual report, I would definitely want to have this book beside me. Happy reading!
Great Little Book To Help You Understand Financial Reports.......2002-03-05
"Keys To Reading An Annual Report" by George Thomas Friedlob and Ralph E. Welton is a wonderful, little book for all investors. Each of the fifty, three-or-four-page sections covers a key concept that investors should understand when reading a public company's annual report and other financial statements.
"Keys To Reading An Annual Report" is no substitute for a complete text about financial statement analysis, such as "The Analysis And Use of Financial Statements," but "Keys To Reading An Annual Report" is an excellent first read for new investors who are learning to understand financial statements. And, experienced readers of annual reports will probably find this book a useful review.
Some of the fifty key topics covered include:
--SEC Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and the 8-K
--Current Assets
--Cash and Receivables
--Cost of Goods Sold and Inventories
--Property, Plant, and Equipment
--Depreciation
--Intangibles and Other Assets
--Depletion and Amortization
--Current Liabilities
--Bonds and Amortization
--Owner's Equity
--Classes of Stock
--Treasury Stock
--Discontinued Operations
--Ratio Analysis
--Taxes and Tax Deferrals
Many of the topics "Red Flag" things to which investors should pay special attention. For example, the chapter about Depreciation Red Flags: "The basis for long-lived asset valuation is historical cost. Because depreciation does not measure actual decline in value, the net book value of a long-lived asset (historical cost - accumulated depreciation) is not a good measure of the cost of replacing the asset. Neither is net book value a good measure of what the asset would bring if sold." (i.e., depreciation expense is a way of expensing the long-lived asset. And, the balance sheet only lists the so-called "unexpired cost.")
The red flag also discusses the difficulty in comparing depreciation across different companies because of the different ways depreciation may be computed.
The section about Treasury Stock tells us: "Stock Issued by a company may later be reacquired by the company. In some cases, the company may retire or cancel this stock. When reacquired stock is not retired or canceled, it is referred to as treasury stock." (there is a nice glossary at the end of the book.).
Friedlob and Welton point out that treasury stock is not an asset. "A company cannot create an asset by holding stock in itself."
However, because the reacquired stock may have been reacquired at a different price than it was originally issued, the wealth within the company can change in such a treasury stock transaction. For example, suppose stock is issued for $20 per share, but reacquired for $2 per share (it's an internet company!), then, somehow, the company has taken in $18 per share on the transaction. How is this accounted for in the financial statements?
Friedlob and Welton explain: "Just as treasury stock is not an asset, a loss or gain cannot result from treasury stock transactions. 'Things' happen that you and I would call a 'loss' (reacquiring treasury stock for $20 per share and later reissuing it for $12) or a 'gain' (reacquiring treasury stock for $30 per share and later reissuing it for $40). But it is illegal for a company to produce a gain or loss transacting in its own stock. When total stockholder's equity is decreased by treasury stock transactions (a loss), the decrease is generally taken directly from retained earnings. No loss is taken... When total stockholder's equity is increased by treasury stock transactions (a gain), the increase is recorded as a separate source of capital called Paid-In Capital from Treasury Stock Transactions."
So, by reading a little, two-page section about treasury stock in Keys To Reading An Annual Report, you probably now know more than 99% of all investors know about treasury stock!
"...If you are new to investing, you might also want to pick up a copy of Barron's "Keys To Investing In Common Stocks," which is an excellent first read for investors.
Peter Hupalo, Author of "Becoming An Investor"
Keys to Reading an Annual Report.......2001-12-30
This small manual concisely and succinctly presents the major elements of financial statements in easy to read, line-by-line format. It is not only ideal for the average investor without an accounting background, but also for the accountant who needs to explain financial statement concepts and presentations to others. Its examples are easy to relate to and quite illustrative. I regret this wasn't available when I tried to decipher "Accounting 101".
A CUT ABOVE ONE OF MY FINANCE COURSES.......2000-07-02
Even thought this book is five years old, the information still applies to the year 2000. As a person who now works iin finance, I know that detail is extremely important. This book certainly does its job by being very detail oriented. I graduated froom a very pretigious business school in which finance is actually the best subject taught, and I have to admit I think this little guide puts many pricey finance/accounting and finance professors to shame. It's also probably a good little guide for kids as well, to give them a headstart in the world of finance.
Book Description
Crystal Reports XI is a powerful software tool for turning raw data into corporate decision-making information. End-users and developers alike use Crystal Reports to extract and format information, and with over 9 million licenses shipped Crystal Reports is one of the most popular packages for corporate reporting. Crystal Reports XI for Developers provides a solid introduction for any report or application developer just getting started with Crystal Reports. Using this practical guide, they will learn to create presentation-quality reports from a variety of data sources, and how to add the advanced features developers need to analyze report data. Developers will learn to create simple and complex reports with the formatting and organization techniques presented in the book, and how to add filtering and summaries to crunch millions of rows of data into a concise and meaningful format. They will also learn to create their own formulas and SQL Expressions, as well as how to use advanced Crystal Reports features such as subreports, cross-tabs, charts, dynamic parameters, and more. Going beyond the sample reports that ship with the product, Crystal Reports XI for Developers is filled with step-by-step essentials and real-world examples, showing readers how to take full advantage of Crystal Reports key features so they can create information-rich, quality reports from their own data and integrate them into their own applications.
Customer Reviews:
Horrible Book.......2007-07-17
Return this book if you've bought it. I bought a copy of this book without reading deeply into(my mistake) cause it looked like it would be useful. I am a C# developer and need to generate some Crystal reports for the project. When I got the book and started reading/looking up info, I found something startling. All of the Code Examples in the Book are VB. Now this doesn't sound bad if your a VB person, but it included C# Examples that were actually VB Code. This was amazing, I'd never seen a mess up by an editor like this. I returned this when i saw it and got a different book that actually had C# in it. Worst Book ever....
Crystal Reports XI for Developers.......2007-07-03
This book has been very helpful in getting my reporting skills where they need to be. It has been much more helpful than the Crystal Reports user guide.
Weak on Development Details.......2006-06-15
This book is not titled particularly well. It does present a good amount of detail about how to develop a report within Crystal Reports--but it does not do a very good job of telling you how to embed those reports into other applications, or how to call the reports from other applications. In other words, if it was titled something like 'Crystal Reports Reference' it would be a pretty good book--but it's definitely not going to serve up the kind of hard-hitting developmental details you would expect for a "developer's guide".
If you're looking for a very plain-vanilla introduction to Crystal Reports integration, this is perhaps sufficient. But if you're looking for the nuts-and-bolts of how to actually fully integrate Crystal Reports into your application--this book will dissappoint. I might note, however, that some of the new features of XI are covered in surprisingly good detail.
As a previous reviewer has noted, many of the implementation examples do not work or work only with considerable tweaking, and the number of development environments that is supported in the examples is somewhat limited.
Excellent resource .......2006-04-20
Crystal Reports is one of the most ubiquitous software packages for turning raw data into useful information. Whether it is a stand alone package or the reporting portion of another program it seems everyone is either using canned reports or writing custom ones with Crystal Reports at some point. In this book the author takes the reader through the process of creating the various types of reports available with Crystal Reports. Starting with the most basic reports that simply list the results he quickly moves the reader through sorting, totaling, grouping, and multiple other ways of organizing your data. From there he moves the reader through the creation of much more complex reports including consolidated ones with multiple sub-reports. In this book you will find everything you need to learn how to use Crystal Reports to its fullest potential including how to integrate it into your own programs. I wish I had had this book available to me when I was first learning Crystal Reports. Crystal Reports XI for Developers is highly recommended. I had no problem integrating a reporting module into a VB program that pulled data from a dbase database.
Don't buy this book - It is a waste of money.......2006-03-18
This book is supposed to be for developers. It's supposed to help you learn how to integrate Crystal XI with your application. DO NOT USE THIS BOOK! It is totally wrong when it comes to telling you how to do it.
Example (pg. 276-277) Explains how to view a report using just a line or two of code. Here's the code: CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = "D:\projects\dynselect.rpt"
It says to add this line in the Form_Load subroutine. Even after making sure the path was correct (mine was C:\Test\dynselect.rpt) it DOES NOT WORK! It comes up with an Invalid Cast Exception. You cannot simply pass the ReportSource property a string. It expects something else. I'm not sure what it expects (it looks like it needs a report object passed to it), but the book certainly doesn't have any clue.
This is totally inexcusable and renders the book useless for anyone wanting to integrate reports into their application.
It ignores Visual Basic 6 (which may be OK for some folks, but certainly made me upset - I still use VB6). There is supposed to be a web site that gives more help and resources from the book, but that is a joke as well. It has a single page that says that it will be ready by December 2005. It's way past that now and still nothing there (http://www.crystalxibook.com)
I can not imagine how this book got published when it is just plain wrong. I gave it 1 star only because the information about using Crystal XI is OK as long as you don't plan on using it in your application. Since this book is supposedly for Developers, even 1 star may be too many.
If you want to use Crystal XI to just create reports, not actually use them, then this book may help.
Otherwise, I would skip it and look for something else.
I will be returning this book.
Book Description
Provides a comprehensive framework for achieving higher levels of corporate information disclosure and transparency
In order to decide whether or not a company is a good investment, analysts and investment professionals need to know as much as possible about the company's tangible and intangible assets, as well as a variety of critical performance measures. Written by an international team of experts, The Value Reporting Revolution clearly explains why corporations must move toward greater transparency and, more importantly, it provides a comprehensive framework for achieving that goal. Among other important lessons, readers learn how to identify the gaps between how corporate managers perceive their disclosure practices versus how the markets see them, as well as how to leverage their organizations' electronic communications technology and tools to ensure easy access to vital information and more meaningful data analysis.
Robert Eccles (Jupiter, FL) is President of Advisory Capital Partners, Inc. Robert H. Herz (New York, NY) is a Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, US. David Phillips (London, UK) is a Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, UK. Mary M. Keegan (London, UK) is head of Global Corporate Reporting at PricewaterhouseCoopers, UK.
Customer Reviews:
Good "second book" on accounting reform.......2002-08-01
If you want to learn about accounting scams, you probably need Mulford and Comiskey, The Financial Numbers Game. But for a broader view of the virtues and limits of accounting, Eccles and company have a lot to offer. You can skip or skim the somewhat overhyped stuff about the "ValueRevolution" itself (note that three of the authors come from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where they seem to be having some trouble with their space bar, or spacebar). Keep your best brain cells for chapters three through eight, where you get a look at the earnings obsession -- and just as useful, a suggestion of what investors really need and want. Note that one of the co-authors (Robert H. Herz) is the new head of the Financial Accounting Standards Board).
Fantastic ! A must read ! Breakthrough thinking !.......2002-03-29
I have purchased several books on amazon.com, but I must say that this is one of the best ones I have read so far ! This is exactly the sort of book management in companies worldwide should be reading ! I live and work in Tokyo, and I think the Japanese public companies here could learn so much from this book ! Corporate reporting here is very poor, especially in the banking sector(horrendous !), and investors do not take them seriously anymore. Public companies here should improve their corporate reporting and utilize the capital markets more, and the first thing they need to do is to regain the trust of their
shareholders. In other words, they should read this book cover to cover right away ! The people who worked on this book, like Mr. Matthew Wissell, who leads the Value Reporting practice in PricewaterhouseCoopers' New York office, should be highly commended for such a fine piece of work !
Fantastic ! A must read ! Breakthrough thinking !.......2002-03-29
I have purchased several books on amazon.com, but I must say that this is one of the best ones I have read so far ! This is exactly the sort of book management in companies worldwide should be reading ! I live and work in Tokyo, and I think the Japanese public companies here could learn so much from this book ! Corporate reporting here is very poor, especially in the banking sector(horrendous !), and investors do not take them seriously anymore. Public companies here should improve their corporate reporting and utilize the capital markets more, and the first thing they need to do is to regain the trust of their
shareholders. In other words, they should read this book cover to cover right away ! The people who worked on this book, like Mr. Matthew Wissell, who leads the Value Reporting practice in PricewaterhouseCoopers' New York office, should be highly commended for such a fine piece of work !
A Call to Arms.......2001-04-07
"ValueReporting" smoothly describes many broken financial reporting processes, including "whispering", a time-consuming process that CFOs play with analysts, where CFOs "whisper" their earnings expectations to the analyst, making the analysts appear intelligent. A great deal for the analyst cause they don't have to do any real analysis. If the CFO does not play this game, they risk the wrath of Wall Street.
The problem with this is that it is in violation of the spirit (if not the law) of the yet to be enforced SEC Fair Disclosure Act which states that Sally Q. Public gets to know material information the same time that John Q. Analyst does.
"ValueReporting" does offer a practical solution through XBRL technology. As a member of XBRL.org I strongly agree with the authors that if business reporting, both financial and non-financial, is standardized, Web technologies are in place to distribute this information uniformly to all investors and in a richer format than at present. With the gentle prodding of regulatory agencies like the SEC and FDIC, this will happen sooner rather than later. Let's hope that SEC Chairman Unger reads this book, and fast.
For me as a consultant and a technologist "who can spell XBRL", The ValueReporting Revolution was a call to arms to apply my knowledge to the inequities of financial reporting. Helping clients sell their wares over the Web is nice, but to level the financial playing field for small companies as well as large, for the small investor as well as the institutional, is ennobling. And forcing Wall Street analysts to actually work for a living, would be, well, just icing on the cake.
Pass Go & collect $200 for this short cut to the future.......2001-03-14
First I should explain that I'm not a neutral reviewer: I have known one of the authors of this book (Bob Eccles) ever since he woke some of us up with his HBR article "The Performance Measurement Manifesto" almost ten years ago, and I've also met another of the authors (David Phillips) in the last year. Coupled with that, some of the work of my company (Metapraxis) on Business Driver Diagrams is mentioned in Chapter 1. I mention these points up-front in the interests of transparency, which is a core theme of the book itself.
The book's thesis is that the investors of the future will reward companies for such transparency - in other words, those companies that understand, measure and publish information about leading indicators such as growth of market share as well as lagging indicators such as profit will be better rated than their competitors, other things being equal.
This is pretty controversial stuff. After all, if you're the CEO or CFO of a major global multinational that's just announced on-target quarterly earnings, but your (currently confidential) internal leading edge indicators say that your market share is starting to fall, how exactly are your investors going to react if you decide to be brave enough to tell them all about it?
There is clearly something of a problem here and I refer to it as the Paradox of the World's Bravest Customer. You don't know who that was? I think it was the guy who bought the world's first fax machine. Think about it.
So undoubtedly there'll be some short-term pain for the pioneers, but once the markets start to see that a core group of innovative firms has the courage to disclose this kind of information (whether good or bad) then it's obvious that this disclosure will reduce the risks involved in these investments. And as John Maynard Keynes pointed out in 1910:
"What would be a risky investment for an ignorant speculator may be exceptionally safe for the well-informed expert. The amount of risk to any investor practically depends, in fact, upon the degree of his ignorance respecting the circumstances and prospects of the investment he is considering." *
The book is all about the revolutionary implications that follow through from this 90-year old observation. Whether you agree with the thesis or not, it will change the way you think about corporate information, business management and investor relations. I recommend it highly to CEOs, CFOs, IR heads, financial analysts and auditors, business school students and indeed to anyone embarking on a career in these areas.
Robert Bittlestone: Managing Director, Metapraxis - London & New York
* JM Keynes: Hopes Betrayed 1883-1920 by Robert Skidelsky (Vol 1); Ch. 9 Economic Orthodoxies. Skidelsky is quoting in turn from the "Collected Writings of JMK": xv 46-47....
Product Description
Executive Compensation Report: Comprehensive Industry Sector Analysis, 2007 Edition by Aon Consulting's eComp Data Service delivers rich statistics to help you establish and defend your clients' compensation. Whether you're advising your clients on contract structure or defending their interests against shareholders' proposals, this unique reference will help you access the latest benchmarking data for senior managements' executive pay against peer companies and quickly define the overall industry context.
Each chapter begins with an industry sector description and overview, providing fast access to important information such as the number of companies within the industry, how they break down by revenue range, summary statistics for executive compensation, and representative samples of the SIC codes for companies whose filings were analyzed.
Executive Compensation Report provides one-of-a-kind summaries on:
Executive Compensation for 26 Key Industries
Data on Senior Levels - from CEO to CTO
Average, Mean, and Benchmark Percentile Statistics
Analysis of Cash Compensation, Stock Options, and Other Long-Term Incentives
Book Description
Students are often overwhelmed by the amount of information presented in the introductory financial accounting course. Fundamental Financial and Managerial Accounting Concepts gives students the big picture, by focusing on fundamental concepts in a logical sequence. The authors intentionally limit the scope of the material to help students build a solid foundation of the most important concepts. As a result, students are able to fully comprehend the material rather than memorize seemingly unrelated terms and topics. In the Financial portion the “horizontal financial statements model” enables students to understand how any given business event affects the financial statements. This highly praised feature allows students to visualize the simultaneous impact of business events on all of the key financial statements (the income statement, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flows). The mechanics of accounting coverage (debits and credits) is delayed until chapter 3 allowing instructors the flexibility in the amount of emphasis they want to place on this topic.
Book Description
An annual report is a powerful and revealing document about a company's financial standing, and can offer the savvy reader substantial insight about where the company may be headed in the future. But to the untrained eye, the annual report may seem like walls of accounting technicalities surrounded by glossy photos and the upbeat "Message from the CEO."
Annual Reports 101 is a straightforward guide to reading the primary financial documents that make up the annual report, and then extracting more information—from the numbers themselves and from the often fluffy text—than some companies want the public to know. The book shows how to watch out for "red flags," decipher footnotes, and see past common practices that, while legal, may not give the most accurate picture. Readers of annual reports include potential investors and business partners, financial advisers, company employees, lenders, and many others whose stake in the success of a public company is crucial to their own. Annual Reports 101 gets past the PR machine to show the meaning behind the math.
Customer Reviews:
A wonderful primer for people wanting to better understand what an Annual Report is really all about!.......2007-08-21
This book was a pleasure to read. I kind of read it as one of three books regarding securities analysis or financial analysis. First I read Security Analysis (ISBN: 0071448209) followed by Fire Your Stock Analyst (ISBN: 0132260387) followed by this book. I highly recommend anyone interested in securities analysis or financial analysis to read all three.
Annual Reports 101 introduces the reader to SEC filings (most notably the Annual Report) that securities analysts use to do their securities or financial analysis. Interestingly, the author points out that analysts should use more of what is included in the annual reports than they in fact use to make their recommendations.
For the past year and a half I have been using my accounting and law background to work on securities fraud class action lawsuits. Much of what is discussed in this book is what such plaintiffs' lawyers need to understand to successfully win their litigation matters. Financial statements are only as good as the underlying data is accurate and the drafters are credible. The public accounting firms don't really audit their clients' books like we think they do. And annual reports rarely paint an accurate picture of how a company is really doing financially. Such reports are generally little more than expensive press releases. But by reading this book you will be able to dig deeper into the facts presented in Annual Reports and hopefully be able to make better decisions that require you reading them.
If you are not particularly adept at accounting, bookkeeping, and financial reporting, then I think this book would be a good introductory primer for you to read. And there is some good material on financial ratios for you to digest. All in all, this was a wonderful book if its topic interests you.
My favorite chapters were 9 and 10. In fact, I read them first when I started the book. And it was nice to see a Glossary included at the end. 5 stars!
Exposes Annual Reports and Need for Accounting Reform.......2007-04-24
Michael Thomsett's Annual Reports 101 is a powerful and practical book that demystifies annual reports. He persuasively makes the case that these reports intend to obscure and obfuscate as much as to enlighten, and that wary investors may get burned if they think reading the reports constitutes due diligence.
Especially for non-financial professionals, Annual Reports 101 is an effective primer to walk you through the structure of these documents, step by step. Thomsett moves from the micro to the macro is arguing that Sarbanes Oxley and other corporate reforms have failed to bring the needed level of transparency to the practice of accounting and reporting financial results.
A STRONG "read" recommendation!
Books:
- Relationship Fundraising: A Donor Based Approach to the Business of Raising Money
- Rich Dad's Real Estate Advantages: Tax and Legal Secrets of Successful Real Estate Investors
- Strategic Logistics Management
- Structured Products Volume 1: Exotic Options; Interest Rates & Currency (The Swaps & Financial Derivatives Library) (Wiley Finance)
- The Art of Short Selling (A Marketplace Book)
- The Collaborative Leadership Fieldbook
- The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
- The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
- The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
- The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- History: Fiction or Science
- Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business
- A Field Guide to the Atlantic Seashore: From the Bay of Fundy to Cape Hatteras
- Animal Cell Culture: A Practical Approach
- Boundaries
- Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most
- Bloody River Blues
- Project Management Professional
- A Garden of Love and Healing: Living Tributes to Those We Have Loved and Lost
- And Justice There Is None
Corporate Finance
| Finance
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Accounting For Dummies
Financial Statements: A Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports
Value Investing for Dummies
Bookkeeping For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance))
Trading for Dummies
