Customer Reviews

Financial Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis, and Valuation: A Strategic Perspective (with Thomson One Access Code)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I am in an MBA program too. I have to use this book as a textbook for the course, Financial Statement Analysis. I have taken Managerial Financing before and done a very good job on that course. But it doesn't help me a lot to understand this terrible book. It isn't that course's fault. I appreciate that I have taken some financing course before I use this book. I can't understand this book very well totally because this book is terrible. Both textbooks for Financing and this course are published by the same publisher, Thomas?..I couldn't believe how different those two books are.

In this book, Pepsi case keeps confusing most readers. Most equations are not highlighted so you can not find them easily and quickly. Homework is not designed for the students who are studying this book but for the authors themselves. Fortunately, our professor sends his master copy to us. It will help us understand homework more, but unfortunately after we have handed in our results.

If anyone who teaches FSA, please do not use this book as your textbook for your students. Pls, pls, pls..Even though you are an expert on accounting or finance, your students will still suffer from your course and almost learn nothing from this TERRIBLE book.

I purchased this textbook because I knew that it was being used at Tuck school of business in a second year advanced financial accounting course. Unfortunately this book has received extremely poor reviews in Amazon. When I purchased this book I was intimidated by the bad reviews whether or not I could even understand the material. When the book arrived I read through it. I finished the entire textbook without having any issues about not understanding anything.

I went ahead and contacted the two authors to complement them on such a wonderful, advanced textbook on fundamental security analysis. I also used the FASP spreadsheet to valuate companies.

Granted this book is very advanced and probably not suitable for just any ordinary MBA student. I am going to attend a JD MBA program and am currently a CFA Level 3 candidate. I think this book is really the essence of fundamental security analysis, whether you are working on the proprietary trading desk at Goldman Sachs in a Long / Short strategy, or within a hedge fund, mutual fund like Fidelity, or equity research division of a bulge bracket bank.

This is not an introductory textbook to security analysis or financial accounting. These authors make that clear and have written other textbooks also available on Amazon for introductory lessons to financial accounting. I believe this is one of the best books I have ever read on the subject, a modern day Security Analysis textbook like Graham and Dodd. I noticed that this was the most expensive textbook I have ever purchased, but I feel very strongly that the skills I have reinforced in this textbook will pay a premium for the rest of my career in various capacities as a front office investment professional.

I like its strategic focus and case-oriented approach. The FSAP is terrific. In this book, financial statements finally found its correct place: describe the strategic decisions made by management. This book is never dry. Instead, it is vivid, fascinating, and a great reading for anyone who is serious with a career in equity research.

We have used this book for the Accounting II class last term. It is not bad, though a little bit complicated. Since I was with an accounting major in undergraduate, it is not tough for me.

I guess the author is trying to help you to consider the complicated accounting treatment with the underlying business strategy. Meanwhile, probably he assumes a familiarity with accounting basics of the readers.

Overall it is a pretty good text for graduate program I think. Also, you have to pay more efforts to understand it well if without an accounting background.

This is a very good book that every financial professional should have handy. It is very detailed and provides great insight into financial statement analysis.

I agree with the reviewer who gave it one star, saying "horrible accounting book ever". Things are not clearly explained in the book. The concepts which should have been easy to explain have been obfuscated. I think it is because the book has been edited, reedited by lots of people on the way and it has lost its cohesive structure. I would not recommend this book to anybody.

This is a terrible book! I am in the MBA program with an undergraduate degree in Finance. I cannot understand this book for the life of me. Forget looking up a topic because the index is just as bad! The book is full of useless financial statements and does a terrible job of explaining it. I dont know whats worse, the publishing company that published this awful book or the professor for using it in his course!

I'm using this book for a Financial Statement Analysis MBA course. I have the pre-requisites required to attend the course so the material is not above my head. The book is detailed and touches on many aspects of analysis. The summary tables in the chapters are useful. There are a couple of negatives though. Firstly, the authors sometimes seem to be writing to impress other professors rather than writing with the student in mind. The readability of the chapters is at times horrendous. I'll just give one example (of many): on page 234 of Chapter 4 there reads a line: "The larger is the amount of capital obtained from these senior sources; the smaller will be the amount of capital obtained from common shareholders and the larger will therefore be the CSL ratio". Two of my classmates and I had to think over this for a good 3 or 4 minutes before I figured out what the authors were trying to say. They really could have broken up the above sentence into smaller more readable fragments with easier language. I have read other accounting books that are much simpler to read even when explaining complex concepts. Another flaw is the explanation of the financial ratios. Some of the explanations are long winded and really could be explained in a much simpler fashion to get to the "essence" of what the ratio is seeking. Our Professor, thank goodness, is able to explain the essence of the ratios much better than the 3 authors of the book. Thirdly, it is extremely irritating when the authors refer to some arithmetic in ratios and extract numbers and they state that the number was obtained from the appendix or some other general area without mentioning which page number they extracted the information from. Honestly, the book is hard to read already and there are so many chapters to cover. Do you want to make the student's life harder by asking him/her to fish through looking for where you extracted relevant numbers that you are using for the calculations? Overall, the book provides some really good insights, but the lack of readability and the author's high-horse language is a definite downer. I wanted to rate this a 2.5 but you can either rate it 2 or 3.

Got this book for a finance class at USF. Price on Amazon is way better than the bookstores. Pretty complex financial topics, but the teacher did a great job explaining things. Without the class and powerpoints, you might get lost in this book.

I am a finance major and understand WACC, CAPM, and valuation very well. Unfortunatly, this book needs major editing. The only thing I can think is that Stickney, Brown, and Wahlen are all business people with little writing ability. They know what they are talking about but need to find an editor with accounting knowledge to lighten the verbage. There is no reason this book should be 1000 pages. It's a great intro into valuation but makes even the most seasoned finance majors scratch their heads sometimes.