Customer Reviews

The Bank Credit Analysis Handbook: A Guide for Analysts, Bankers and Investors

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Mr. Golin has written an easily readable and comprehensive guide to an obscure subject. He assumes only a general knowledge of finance and takes the user step-by-step through the analysis of a bank's financial statements, an approach that probably makes this book as useful to equity analysts as it should be to credit analysts of financial institutions. He has a rare perspective, that of an american lawyer (from Harvard Law School) who has grappled with investment analysis of corporations in south east Asia. As a result, many of the examples in the long section on distressed banks are drawn from the Asian economic crisis. Nevertheless the scope of the work is global. He deals with the continuing development of world-wide bank regulation and the role and function of rating agencies. Last, but not least, the appendices contain useful definitions and a good bibliography. For analysts of finanical institutions his book should be a 'strong buy'.

I bought this book 3 years ago, when I started by PhD. At that time I knew nothing about banks' financial statements analysis and the book consequently become as it says a "Guide", in my early steps in the topic. I still go back from time to time to re-read some issues. Thus, I would recommend the book to those interesting in getting a first insight into banks' financial analysis. They will find the first 14 chapters quite useful. Chapters 15-27 examine other issues, such as the environment, distressed banks in Asia, the rating industry among others. How useful the later can be highly depends on what the reader is looking for.

I read this book because I was interested in investing in bank stocks during 2009 when the market was panicking about our government nationalizing banks. Banks operate differently than other companies in different industries. When investors look at the income statement and balance sheet of banks, they might easily get confused because these financials look different. This book changes it all. After reading this book, readers will learn how banks make money, how to read banks' financial statements, how to differentiate between excellent and mediocre banks and much more. After reading this, it became apparent why Warren Buffett likes Wells Fargo and US Bancorp. The profits that I made on both Wells Fargo and US Bancorp stocks far outweighed the cost of this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about banks.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

The content of the Bank Credit Analysis Handbook is actually quite good. However, it is glaringly apparent that NO ONE proofread the manuscript. There are errors on almost every other page: missing punctuation (incuding periods), the same phrase back-to-back, incorrect formulas, formulas described one way, and then shown in a way nowhere close to the description. I have an MBA, and have read my share of textbooks and manuals, and I have NEVER come across one as sloppily edited as this one.

The content of the book is good, but at $105 one would think someone would have proofread the manuscript before it was published.

Purchase from amazon it's simple way and the book I really needed and will help me to make a decision in my job