Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company's True Value
Author: Michelle Leder
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0471433470
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (25 July, 2003)
Sales Rank: 5,276
Average Customer Rating: 4.79 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Highly Recommended
Hard to believe that a financial how-to-book like this would be a page
turner. But, I thoroughly enjoyed this easy-to-read, timely and well
written book. Leder's tactics and strategies for lay investors are
invaluable. She provides the insight and perspective of a professional
analyst.
"Bottom Line" a book well worth the investment.
Rating: 5 out of 5
A classic update to Quality of Earnings!
If you're the type of investor who loved Quality of Earnings, this is a must read! It's smart and sophisticated, yet easily understandable for even novice investors. By explaining in vivid detail the different "red flags" that investors need to be wary of, the author, who writes from the point-of-view of the average investor, makes her points clearly and concisely.What's particularly charming about this book, when compared with some of the other accounting-related books out there, is that you don't have to be a CPA or have an MBA or some other advanced degree to understand this book. Yet, the book is sophisticated enough to also be appealing to people who do.
I can't help but wonder now, as proxy and annual report season gets underway, how many investors would find this book incredibly useful. The chapter on related party transactions, which is cleverly titled All in the Family, is worth the book's price alone. For any investor who picks or invests in individual stocks, this is truly a must read!
Rating: 5 out of 5
An individual investors' best friend
The investment club that I'm in wound up losing a lot of money on Healthsouth, so we've been very cautious over the past year. But with the market rising, we know that all of this caution has wound up costing us money. Luckily, one of our members received Financial Fine Print as a Christmas present this year. Over the past month or so, this book -- now dog-eared -- has made its way to all 15 of us and we now feel as if we're better investors as a result. I finally decided to buy my own copy because I think it's one of the best books available for individual investors who are looking to do their own research on stocks. There's so many great examples of the sorts of things companies try to hide from their investors in their SEC filings -- information investors need to have before they put their money on the line.One of the things our group has done over the past month is to go back and look at Healthsouth's SEC filings to see if we would have made the same mistakes. Now armed with Ms. Leder's expert advice, we found numerous "red flags" that would have prompted us to sell the stock before Healthsouth's problems became so apparent. Yes, hindsight is always 20-20, so it's easy to say that now. But we all still feel that we've learned so much from this book that we can now invest with a lot more confidence, instead of being pre-occupied with the fear that we're buying another company that's much more interested in enriching its executives at the expense of their shareholders.
Most of the other accounting-related books our group has read -- and we've read a bunch -- all seem to be aimed at a professional audience and can be a bit dry unless you're the type of person who thinks FASB is fascinating. Not this book. Using easy to understand language and examples that help you put the complicated accounting into perspective, this excellent book is an individual investor's best friend!
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