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88 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great for the beginning to intermediate investor!, October 15, 2008
This review is from: Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements: The Search for the Company with a Durable Competitive Advantage (Hardcover)
If you have an underlined copy of Security Analysis (Ben Graham's 700 page treatise on value investing) sitting on your desk or you are a professional money manager you may or may not find this book interesting. But if you are a beginner to intermediate investor who is interested in getting a quick basic course in how to read financial statements from a Warren Buffett perspective it is the perfect book.
I'm a professional with $500 million under management and I got a couple of good ideas out of it. But at this stage of my career getting a couple of good ideas on how to make more money is just fine with me. It only takes a couple of great ideas to get rich and even fewer to stay rich. Their book the New Buffettology, which was published in 2002, is aimed more at the professional investor and many people in the investment business use it. But I would say this book is for that beginning to intermediate group that really are a little in the dark about what to look for in a company's financial statements. And it focuses on what to look for if you are like Buffett and looking for a company with a Durable Competitive Advantage. Also it is a quick and easy read - unlike Graham's Security Analysis which most people buy but never read - try reading 700 pages on how to read a financial statement and see how far you get before you nod off with boredom. Quick and easy can be a good thing for great many investors.
Am I glad I bought it? Yes. Would I recommend it to my friends that aren't professionals? Yes. Would I recommend it to professionals? Yes, but don't expect to get more than a few good ideas out of it.
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77 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Basic and redundant...not for business people, October 17, 2008
This review is from: Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements: The Search for the Company with a Durable Competitive Advantage (Hardcover)
This book may be helpful for those seeking a general understanding of financial statements and what Mr. Buffett considers in his review, but be aware of several points:
1. The book is written in remedial business language that leaves out a lot of important details that an active investor should know. It is clearly not intended for anyone with a decent understanding of accounting or finance;
2. The book contains errors - in two separate tabular displays, the balance sheet presented is not even balanced;
3. I wish I had a count of the number of times they wrote "durable competitive advantage." I get it - a durable advantage is important; and
4. Entire paragraphs are repeated verbatim in some sections. The book is horribly redundant - the authors clearly ran out of things to say.
In my opinion, the authors rushed to release this book and profit from the market downturn. Anything with Warren Buffett's name on it is apparently a hot selling item currently, and while this book certainly has some useful bits of investing advice, I would be surprised if Mr. Buffett himself actually read or approved the content of the book. The vast majority of the book is very general, basic information, and the only reason the book is getting attention is because the authors are lucky enough to have worked with Warren Buffett and are able to use his name in their title.
Overall, if you know nothing about investing or financial statements, this is probably a good book for you; however, if you have a business background and are somewhat versed in accounting and finance, you will find this to basic and redundant. It is a quick read and a cheap price, so I am not entirely negative on it, but certainly wish I would have flipped through a hard copy before ordering on Amazon. Lesson learned. I would give it two stars, but knocked to one for the errors and redundancy.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Verbose, cloying cute, and just plain wrong, January 21, 2009
This review is from: Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements: The Search for the Company with a Durable Competitive Advantage (Hardcover)
Mary Buffett's fortuitous choice of a surname and gravy-training of her ex-father-in-law are her only qualifications for writing this dreadful excuse for a book.
The book is loaded with inaccuracies, the primary being this: she attempts to educate the reader by referring throughout the book to a fictional balance sheet, listing current assets, depreciation et al.
Here's the thing: her balance sheet DOESN'T BALANCE! The assets don't equal the liabilities plus the shareholder's equity. Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of accounting knows that that can't be.
Another gem is when she says that smart investors invest in companies with a natural near-monopoly, that essentially have a market to themselves. She then lists some companies that allegedly fit that criterion. The first two companies she lists are...wait for it...
Coke and Pepsi.
The classic textbook example of two rival companies that produce an almost identical product, and Mary Buffett lists each as her example of a company that has a market to itself.
The writing style is annoyingly redundant, patronizing and just flat-out wrong. It's amazing that it took two "writers" to put together such a rotten book. You're better off buying nothing.
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