The Financial Numbers Game: Detecting Creative Accounting Practices
Author: Charles W. Mulford, Eugene E. Comiskey
List Price: $39.95
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ISBN: 0471370088
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (18 January, 2002)
Sales Rank: 21,212
Average Customer Rating: 4.24 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 2 out of 5
you are not likely to learn anything knew from this book
This book is not likely to tell you anything that you don't know already from reading the newspapers. The authors wrote in the introduction that it requires advanced knowledge of finance and accounting to comprehend the material. Nothing like that. A couple of basic accounting courses are all you need to read it. It is redundant. It didn't tell me anything new although if I were a sophomore in college then maybe I would have learned something. Don't expect to get any insight into the financial numbers game. It is a little more than a basic review of current accounting issues. If you read business publications from time to time then you are already well familiar with everything the book has to say.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Could not have come at a better time . . . .
This book could not have come at a better time, given the Enron debacle shocking investors, accountants, and politicians all over the world. Mulford and Comiskey explain what signs to look for in detecting earnings manipulation. They have gathered advice from expert analysts, CFOs, and CPAs, and provide real-world examples of aggressive and fraudulent financial reports. I have long viewed Mulford and Comiskey
as experts in the field, and they did not let me down in their analysis of creative accounting procedures in The Financial Numbers Game. A great book!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Highly Recommended!
A special note in the preface of this book explains that it went to press just as the Enron story was beginning to break. Three of its chapters provide almost all the information anyone would have needed to spot the problems at Enron, not to mention at the other big corporations whose scandals made recent headlines. Spotting fraud isn't that hard. The authors provide a very useful toolkit that even a novice investor can use. Some of their coverage of the regulatory apparatus will no doubt have to be changed in future editions, as the regulations themselves keep changing, but this enlightening introduction to the nitty-gritty of skeptical financial statement analysis will have enduring utility. It's written by accountants, so it gets a bit plodding in spots, but their anecdotes relieve the tedium and their information is invaluable. We recommend this reality check for every investor's bookshelf, as well as every employee's and every financial reporter's. Anyone who depends on corporate performance or who uses corporate financial statements should read it. Similar Products
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