Customer Reviews

Finance (Barron's Business Review)

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

 

 

This book is superb. At first, I was a bit hesitant, because at first glance it appears technical and dense. But as I began to study it, I realized that fear and excessive eagerness to understand everything right away in an obstacle when approaching a book like this, and it was my fear and eagerness that caused my initial misgivings. In fact this book is great. It has no excessive verbiage that characterizes many textbooks today. It makes it clear that a theoretical model is just that--a very simplified view of a possible reality, and not a reflection of the real world. It also gives relevant problems and provides the answers immediately. I like the fact that the author introduce key terms for each chapter in the beginning. This sets your mind in the direction of the subject, and you know what to pay attention to when reading through the chapter.

In short, a beginner can use this book effectively to learn about finance, while someone more experienced can use this book as a valuable reference tool. I have invested in stocks for many years and studied international political economy at the graduate leve, but there is nothing like a direct, no-nonsense explanation of the basics and intermediate concepts. This book will give you just that.

I loved this book! Usually the fact that it's a text book would bore you already, however this book is both entertaining and educational! I'm an accountant but recently I've started exploring the investment banking world, and this book was definately my candel through the dark times! It's easy to read, yet rich in content! Actually, I loved this book so much that I bought all the Barron's business series books! If you want to study finance, or need a great comprehensive reference, then I recommend this book!

Your Business Review series is excellent. While this series was not designed for CLEPs or any of the other standardized examinations universities use to test accomplished areas of knowledge, I have found the entire series crucial for just that. Particularly as I am entering an MBA program. These volumes were precisely what I needed, and I have been telling everyone with even slight interest in these topics about them. Specifically, I am referring to the following books of the series (by title): Accounting, Business Statistics, Economics, Finance, Management, and Marketing.

I used this book solely to study for the DSST Finance exam. Be forewarned if you are taking this test: it is VERY DIFFICULT. This book was sufficient for me to obtain an A grade of 61 (minimum passing score is 46). I would recommend the Barron's book, but you might want to supplement with other materials. All in all, this should be enough if you study hard and understand the concepts.

This book explains method of finance very clearly. For me, finance is out of my experties, but once I read this book, I was facinated! The authors intend for college students, but I dare to recomend it not only who are studying financial theory but also experts of the industry.

Reasonable value for price. Decent overview of finance topics. However, lots of typos and other mistakes if you read closely and repetitive in some respects, which lessens the effectiveness of the presentation of material somewhat.

This book is fine, I use it and find it relatively helpful, though I'm not as enthusiastic as other reviewers. The reason I like this Barron series is that only pertinent information is given. This is in nice contrast to textbooks that often are quite verbose and make difficult subjects even more difficult. This book continues with this philosophy but in my mind perhaps goes overboard.

Here are the reasons I don't feel particularly excited about this product:

1. The problems at the end of each chapter are perhaps too simplistic to really be helpful in test preparation.

2. Some of the chapters are too vague. For instance the valuation chapter is quite short and gives very few examples about how to value bonds or equity.

3. There is not even one word of mention about how to use spreadsheets or financial calculators. It is actually a little annoying to me how often they refer to the FV and PV tables as if they were some kind of ultra-convenient high tech tool.

While this book is not terrible by any means, I feel it is outdated and not on par with other Barron's books I've used. I would hesitantly recommend it, because I think there is a lot of room for improvement.

Easy to understand when it comes to some topics and confusing on others. Only got this for class and ended up not much compare to what you can find on the web.

Great book! I could actually stay focused, very interesting but has a whole lotta information. I decided to read this book because Im buying another on mergers and acquistition, and it recommended some prior knowledge of finance and accounting, I thought it would be a hassle, but it was a valuable experience and I learned alot. Id recommend this book to ANYONE...

Reading the other reviews on this book, I can't help but wonder whether we are talking about the same book.

I've read a few books on finance in my time and this one arguably is the worst one of all.

The structure of the book is bad. Concepts are put into practice many chapters before they are introduced. Example: the balance sheet is defined from page 425 (!) onward although, of course, sentences like "this shows up on the right-hand side of the balance sheet" appear much earlier in the book. The line of reasoning at times is so muddied that I wonder whether the authors understood things themselves. This is underlined by a large number of downright errors.

To be fair, there are some positive sides to the book (hence 2 stars): individual chapters contain boxes named "you should remember" which contain helpful summaries. There are sections intended for practice (including answers) that I would like to see in many other textbooks. Also, some of the sections are actually well-written, interesting and important. It's just that consistency is totally lacking.

My conclusion is that, although there are sections in the book that are excellent, a beginner in the subject will not be able to distinguish them from the less succesful material it is interspersed with. Certainly not recommended for the audience it is intended for.