Reading Financial Reports For Dummies | 
| Author: Lita, Mba Epstein
Publisher: For Dummies
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $9.59
You Save: $10.40 (52%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 3749
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0764577336
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.632042
EAN: 9780764577338
ASIN: 0764577336
Publication Date: December 24, 2004
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Product 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
The best foundation June 2, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
So i'm just starting to get into the investing world and after reading books on the top guys like Warren Buffet and George Soros I wanted to read something that would help me grasp financial statements so I could learn if business are being profitable and make educated decisions instead of betting on the market. This helped me ALOT. I gives great examples of not just the information on a financial report but also gives you a behind the scene's look at how the numbers can be affected by different business reporting. If you're just getting into the field, buy this! Even if you know 50% of what's in here, there's things that you pick up along the way that are priceless.
If you had to read only one investment book, this one should be it! April 17, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is the single best book for beginner and intermediate-skilled investors. I believe most non-professional investors will find this an absolute gem. The writing is clear and actually fun to read. You will learn the basics of how to evaluate companies, but Epstein includes nuances that even more advanced investors will find useful.
The book is valuable because of its appropriate coverage of 4 separate areas:
1)Teaches the reader basic accounting. For example, what do different items on a cash flow statement really mean and how are they related to the balance sheet or the income statement?
2)Once you understand basic accounting, it teaches you how to manipulate some of these numbers to get a better understanding of how well the company is doing. For example, what is the significance of inventory turnover?
3)Points you to other sources for more information and greater understanding ie: different websites and how to get bond ratings on particular companies.
4)Discusses pitfalls of analyzing financial reports. She discusses how companies manipulate numbers and how you can improve your chances of catching the culprits. She discusses 10 guilty companies.
There are many great books investors should read, but if you were only allowed one then this should be the one. Bravo Lita!
P.S. I am not a generous Amazon reviewer as you can see for yourself by reading my other reviews.
Great Book April 7, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Great book, makes it very EASY to understand formulas. Not like most textbooks where there is pages of useless information. Recomend to anyone taking corporate finance or financial analysis.
reading financial reports for dummies November 29, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is an easy read. I thought I knew alot about business and the reports that reveal the status of business, but I found that I have alot more to learn. This book will help.
Alex Prokop
Even Better Than I Had Hoped... July 14, 2007
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
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.
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