Customer Reviews

Basic Finance: An Introduction to Financial Institutions, Investments and Management

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I used this book for an online self-study course in finance, so i was dependent on the book alone for clear explanations. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my hopes. I would think that I understood the text until I got to the questions at the end of the chapter which seemed to have little to do with what I'd just read. There has to be a better book on finance out there than this one!

I bought this book for a finance class.

I took that class because it was a requirement for a degree, but I understood many of the principles before I ever cracked the book just from work/life experience. It's a good thing I did!

This text makes financial principles immensely more complicated than they need to be. The end of chapter questions relate to the chapters, but you often have to really work to see just how to apply what you've read to solving the problems. And each chapter has internet assignments, but many of them cannot be completed as written - the book tells you to gather information from one website or another, and those websites don't have the information available. One question even had me looking for a current financial statement for a particular company; not only could I not get the statement from the recommended site, I couldn't get it at all! That company had merged with another...and the merger took place before this edition was published, so there's absolutely no excuse.

If you have to buy this book for a class, you have my sympathies. If you don't...don't! There really is some good information hidden away in here, which is why it's not getting one star from me, but it's not worth the effort it takes to get to it.

This book is borderline worthless for an intro finance course resource. I ended up going outside of the text for most assignments and pooling the resources of Investopedia and other financial websites. Even Wikipedia typically had more to offer than this quagmire of calculus equations. The book offered examples with insufficient explanation, and glossed over important materials that one would need to master for such a course. I don't know whose decision it was to change the required text to this mess, but shame on them.

Book was shipped in the condition in which was stated and in a timely manner.

The product came on time and in a great condition.
Also a great price.