Reading Financial Reports For Dummies

by Lita Epstein

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 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 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.

Genres: Business, Finance, Accounting, Nonfiction, Economics, Reference

362 pages, Paperback

First published December 24, 2004

Reviews

[Martin Zoul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kniha popisuje Finanční reporty od začátku až do konce. Od jejich istorie, přes význam a vysvětlivky, na co si dát pozor nebo to kde společnosti schovávají v textu negativní informace. Nicméně jsem v knize asi nenašel to, co jsem čekal, a to různé vysvětlivky z finančních reportů, například, co je to "Cost of Goods Sold" a co si u něj hlídat atd. Také jsem v knize hodně skákal protože jsem spoustu věcí již znal nebo mě úplně tak nezajímaly.

Kniha může být velmi zajímavá pro lidi, které zajímá význam finančních reportů a kteří nehledají přímo vysvětlivky pojmů, ale komplexní vysvětlení co je např. Income Statement a proč je pro investory i společnosti tak důležitý.

Od knihy jsem měl možná přílišné očekávání nebo spíše, jiné očekávání a proto mě až tak nebavila a proto jsme v ní i tolik skákal, nicméně si myslím, že se k ní určitě časem budu vracet pro různé mnou označené pasáže.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly, this is not the snore-fest the title would have you believe. Maybe my opinion says more about me than about the book, but it's very straightforward and spends most of its time teaching you your way around a financial report and how to calculate a whole set of ratios to look for certain kinds of problems. The writing is pretty good, and I was pleasantly surprised that this one didn't bog down halfway through like the other Dummies books I've read.

I must confess I didn't catch on to double entry bookkeeping and the credit/debit issue during the brief discussion of it in this book, but once again I think that says more about me, and it's not the focus of the book. I could understand the example financial statements and the calculations just fine.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

This 3rd edition has numerous publisher errors. The 2nd edition would be the one to read. This edition tries to use 2011-2012 data for Mattel/Hasbro but convolutes it with the 2nd editions 2006-2007 numbers and references, so it makes it confusing and unprofessional. Chapter 13 has many examples of the real slop-job by the publisher. The author herself does a great job in digging into the topic and explaining it in layman terms, but be sure and grab an older edition.

[Калоян Захариев · Rating 4 out of 5]

Това беше обогатяващо четиво. Авторката се е постарала почти да напише ученик, толкова внимателно и подробно е подходила. Все пак това не е книга, която можеш да прехвърлиш набързо. Материята и обема изискват време, а доста често - да се връщаш назад и да препрочиташ едно или друго.
Не запомних всичко, но определено научих доста неща, до едно - полезни. Полезно четиво, определено.

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, easy to understand

[Serene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely helpful introduction to interpreting financial reports.

The author covers the three key financial statements as well as the various segments of an annual report that are often overlooked by investors.

[Ray Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely boring but a necessary evil. A lot of it was over my head, but I did get a decent sense of what makes up financial reports.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly, an excellent introduction into how to read financial statements.

Epstein occassionally goes offtrack. For many pages, she goes from telling you how to read financial statements to making an argument about some obscure global accounting brouhaha, which is totally out of place.

Still, mostly good.

[M F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it years ago, and it was a good manual/book

[Olivier Pitre-Breton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some numbers errors in the book ( in a book about numbers ! ), maybe when they updated the edition, they forgot to change some numbers ...

[Khin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's very easy to understand, and covers several areas as the title says. The book itself is really great, but the repeated errors in numbers are devastating. It should be thoroughly reviewed again. But I will still give it 5 stars.

[Shonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know it seems silly that I read this book. I was looking for a book that I could recommend to non-accounting people that could help them better understand their financials. I'm surprised at how many people are responsible for running the operations of a business, but don't understand the end result. I've heard more than once "help me understand what it is I'm looking at". How can you effectively run a business (or help run one, or contribute to it) if you don't understand the impacts of your decisions to the bottom line?

While this book was geared more towards investors than company employees, it had a lot of good information and was explained in a way that was simple and clear. There was a lot of repetition, but I think considering the audience, that's probably helpful. I did find a couple of errors in the book, but nothing earth shattering or probably even noticeable to a non-accountant. Overall, I would steer people toward this book until I come across a better one. I just have to figure out how to not make it sound insulting when I recommend it.

[Comaskeyk001]

with the halving of my 301-k I decided to invest on my own,,, doing good but then anyone who invested in march 09 probably did as well or better than me

[Neil Saint-jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

If you are looking to learn how to read financial reports or brush up, this is an excellent book !