Customer Reviews

Financial Statement Analysis Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises and Tests to Help You Master Financial Statement Analysis (Wiley Finance)

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I ordered this book without getting the first book that goes along with it. Make certain you do, this is just a workbook.

This is without doubt the best book on financial statements I've ever read.

Every chapter of the book is a joy to read and clarifies a lot of advanced accounting ideas. However Chapter 8 "Applications and Limitations of EBITDA" I particularly enjoyed.

As a value oriented investor I prefer Free Cash Flow (rather than net income) as a measure of a companies true earnings.

Almost every accounting definition of FCF, praises the figure for how it demystifies net income. And yet most of these places define FCF as simply Net Income + Depreciation.

It is obvious simply adding back depreciation doesn't get rid of all GAAP manipulation.

This book is the first to thoroughly explain how changes in working capital must be monitored, since the bloating of working capital etc is a warning of GAAP chicanery.

(As the authors recommend, you do need an average level of accounting knowledge to follow this book. Absolute beginners will need to learn the basics first.)

This book is very basic. The solutions book for this book is difficult to read and I did not go anywhere with it. It is probably much better for a general overview of financial shenanigans than anything. If you are a credit analyst then a much better book and much more in depth analysis (not accounting though) is Financial Statement Analysis by John J. Wild and others. Get the CD though if possible because it will help out greatly.

Like one other reviewer, I also inadvertently ordered the workbook instead of the actual book. It's a n easy trap to fall for because: i) it can be particularly confusing as the same editorial/customer reviews & product description is atrributed to both texts, ii) the workbook comes up first in regular searches on Amazon, iii) the frequently bought together texts are actual text books from other authors. You would expect that the workbook would be frequently bought with the actual text.

All this is a bit misleading (falling short of calling it a scam) for those of us that quickly flick through and don't pay attention to all the details. It was a particularly expensive mistake for me as I live abroad & had this delivered under international shipping. Please be careful.

Worbook provide the interaction needed to keep abreast on financial statements analysis.Also to generate red flags for further review.