Reviews (6)

When did textbooks become so interesting?
I concur with the other reviewers...this is one textbook that is worth every dollar.The authors use color and layout so well in their instruction...a wonderful feature since economics, even with all its fancy graphs, can be very boring.The text is even engaging.It's a bookshelf staple for anyone who is interested in economics, student or not.

Economics primer with a right-wing bias
As others have written, this text is reasonably well-written and organized. However, it has a clear bias, presenting and defending a right-wing agenda. For example:

*Taxes, unions, environmental protection, transfer payments are bad.
*School vouchers, social security reform to presonal retirement accounts, medical savings accounts are good ideas.

Of course I oversimplify (slightly), but whatever side of these and other issues one might fall, it's pretty clear that the other side is given short shrift.

A minor beef I had with this text is that too many of its examples cater to the college student.

Reviews (9)

Good review of statistics and how it works in real life
The only complaint that I have is that it either could have used more examples or have a better explaination of the examples given. But about 7.5-8 times out of 10, it was right on the mark.
This is assuming this may be used for an undergraduate program.

But if this book was used for a Master's program, I used this book for a Applied Managerial Business Decision Making, CTUonline.edu Master's level class. So I guess the book actually does more of a review of statistics with examples of how it applies in the real business world.

If you are in an undergraduate program, your school may accept credit by examination. You may possibly be able to test out of your statistics requirement. Go to http://www.1yearba.com for more information.

Good Book
This was a useful book and had helpful examples using excel. I had hoped that it would have had examples using the TI83 calculator but other than that this was a good book for statistics.

Reviews (6)

Fin accounting for dummies
This is an excellent introductory textbook.

Good Introduction to Accounting
I started out with practically no knowledge of accounting - this book did a very impressive job of introducing me to the various concepts. I can now read and understand the financial statements put out by the companies. Our professor used this book very extensively - he would talk about a topic and then point out the page numbers where the authors had written about that topic.
This is a pretty good reference too - I have refered to the book many times when I see certain accounting terms used in the press. The authors have kept the explanation very concise and have inserted examples that capture the essence of the explanation.
I found the book to be very expensive though.

Reviews (9)

This Book Is Excellent...and Essential
After reading the reviews on this book, I feel that I must comment on the book's high quality.

In order to fully appreciate this book, an understanding must exist as to where the material fits in the financial analysis process.Clearly this book is not meant to explicitly teach readers how to build financial models; other books are available for that purpose.This book is designed to teach readers how to thoroughly read, understand, and more importantly, become an astute critic of the language of financial statements, GAAP.

I disagree that technical accounting details are not very important in analysis engagements.Rather the opposite holds true in a majority of cases: One must thoroughly understand technical accounting and the implications that it has on economic reality in order to build quality financial models.Otherwise, "junk in/junk out" models will result.

Given the highly publicized debacles that have recently occurred in the financial world, including Enron, the importance of distinguishing technical accounting from economic reality has become obvious.This book does effectively explain and build off the foundations of GAAP; however, this book is primarily focused on helping an analyst analyze and question the quality of financial statements versus how to simply prepare them.This is the big difference between this book and technical accounting textbooks.

Of course, building financial models for decisions is the end objective of any analyst.However, this book is a must read in building quality financial models and projections.Again this book is not a financial modeling textbook, nor a technical accounting manual.Rather, it is a critical bridge between technical accounting material and decision modeling material.I recommend taking the time to read this excellent book and walk across the bridge before moving on to modeling.

Good reference book; poor textbook
Given the glowing rating this book has received from most reviewers, I have been somewhat disappointed with this book.My main thought is this:This is a good book for non-accountants to keep as a *reference text* since the authors' do a good job of explaining technical financial accounting matters in a straightforward way.However, I do not think this is a good book to actually *learn financial statement analysis* from.

The book tends to focus on technical accounting details while ignoring other important aspects of analysis (e.g., econometric methods, the relationship between the decision model and the nature of the analysis, etc.).It is difficult to tell what the authors see as the most important, central concepts and methods in financial statement analysis.One gets the idea that if you were to ask the authors "What are the really important concepts and methods in this book?", they would answer "Oh, it's *all* good!"

In my experience as an analyst, technical accounting details were rarely important--even when using historical financial statement data to develop financial simulation models for firms.There's a simple explanation for why this is so: An individual firm's financial statements might be "garbage," but the only reasonable way of telling this is by making inferences from the relationship between exogenous economic factors, competitors' financial results (on average), and the individual firm's results.It's about the only reasonable way to extract signals (likely economic "truth") from noisy financial statement data.

I definitely agree with previous reviewers who stated the book is poorly written:it is often both wordy and vague.Consider the (lack of) discussion on p. 332 of the important topic, R&D expenditures:

"Companies invest in ... (R&D) because they expect ... profitable future products.However, absent a resultant commercial product, these expenditures may have not value to the firm.Further, the value of any product may be unrelated to the amount spent on R&D.Due to valuation uncertainties, R&D is generally unacceptable to creditors as security for loans."

I think they mean this: Firms make investments since they expect economic returns on them, but return on R&D expenditures is usually very unpredictable.(Whew. I'm glad they told me! Now I won't feel stupid when talking to other analysts.)The authors then proceed immediately to a summary of accounting standards on R&D expenditures.(This is financial statement analysis?)

It's not clear either that the purpose of presenting a cohesive view of financial statement analysis is served by the sometimes excessive references to empirical research by accounting academics.A cynical reader might suspect this is done to ingratiate the book with accounting professors who will make it the required text for their course!

In the end, I think the book fails to explain fundamental concepts and methods of analysis by which specific information is derived from financial statements for input to specific decision models.What's the antidote?Get Fridson (Wiley) and Bergevin (Prentice-Hall): Nice straightforward books that really explain how to do financial statement analysis.

Reviews (6)

Amazon review system mixing two books?
From what I can tell, the Amazon review system seems to be mixing at least three books:

1) Fundamental Financial Management, 8th Edition (Study Guide) Authors: Brigham and Houston.
ISBN:003024434X

2)Financial Accounting: An Introduction to Concepts, Methods and Authors: Stickney and Weil
ISBN:0030259622

3) Financial Accounting: The Impact on Decision Makers
Authors: Porter and Norton
ISBN:0030270995

Note that some of the reviews refer to Brigham as the author and some to Stickney and Weil.

This is a great book
I am currently enrolled in the CFA program (Level II candidate), and this book was used for my first corporate finance class.I must say that I was a bit turned off at first by the amount of colorful pictures and charts the Brigham book contained under the assumption that the more staid the book was, the less gimmicks it had and the better it was (like the Brealey-Myers book).However, I was repeatedly struck by how conscise Brighams' explanations and examples were.The book not only had exhaustive coverage, but it was very well-written.The vignettes at the beginning of each of the chapter really shows a good application of the chapter's lesson in the real world.

When ever I come across a question concerning finance, I almost always reach for the Brigham and Houston book first--it's that good.

Reviews (18)

Prof. Reilly is awesome!
Buy this book! GO IRISH and GO AIM XVIII!!! (aim.nd.edu)

Very thorough! The only real book on PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
I would have given Reilly's book a five (5) star if its explanation had been slightly simpler and there were key check figures / solutions for chapter exercises & problems at the back. The coverage on most topics in both "Investment" and "Portfolio" parts has been written in much depth supported by research from various well-known journals. I have 3 editions of this same book (1989, 1997 and 2001 - the one just before this edition) and each time Reilly has improved & updated it a great deal. This is the ONLY textbook which really examines the subject of PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT in detail (especially on bond & derivatives) unlike other texts which merely "introduce" the subject after covering the Investment Analysis part in some depth. Eventhough it is meant for those who have some knowledge of finance or basic investment, its comprehensiveness makes it a great reader for those who want to know more about the subject e.g advanced undergraduate in business. Excellent text for those pursuing MBA in Finance or CFA professional qualification but will require some asssitance in getting the problem figures checked. Overall, a fantastic piece of work; unfortunately not meant for self-study...

Reviews (15)

Follow up on Amit Gupta's review
I totally agree with Amit's review.For a practitioner's perspective Bruce Tuckman's "Fixed Income Securities: Tools for Today's Markets" is a much better choice than Fabozzi.

Comprehensive, but Dry
If you want to learn about fixed income securities, then this is your book. It is very comprehensive and contains a wealth of information.

The only downside to this book is that, unless you really, really interested in fixed income, it will put you too sleep. There were several times where I had to re-read paragraphs/pages, because I went into a daydream.

Despite this drawback, it is an excellent resource and I will not give it my copy of it.

Errors Abound
This is meant to be the fixed income manual, but if there are dozens of uncorrected math errors which is inexcusable in a sixth edition.This book is overrated, and if you are new to this subject, it is dangerous.

Reviews (7)

This book delivers on its title
After studying this book, you will know the technical intricacies of futures, options, and swaps.It has also excellent definitions of all the "Greek" risk measures (Delta, Vega, Gamma, etc...).

The book is well organized.The chapter sequence makes good sense.This is a good book overall.

I bought it becasue I had to....
Many of us ended up with this book on the shelf because it was recommended by the AIMR for the CFA course.This book was so badly edited that it was distracting - figures in tables not matching figures in the text, some calculations just plain wrong, and everything covered at a very superficial level.This had the potential to bridge the gap between a Hull-type presentation and an undergrad-type.Sadly, this book really disappoints.

Isbn: 0935015396
Sales Rank: 308852

Editorial Review

If you bought yourself a financial calculator during the 1980s, chances are it was this bad boy. Nothing has changed since its introduction--it still uses Reverse Polish Notation (RPN), is easy and versatile in programming, and has a thin, sturdy casing. Certainly, there's been newer, fancier calculators introduced since, but there's something to be said for the quality of classics.

The HP 12C's functions include all the basics--such as calculating APR, NPV, and IRR--and statistics are a snap. For students new to financial calculators, this is an excellent place to start. For the most part, the manual reads like a minitextbook, walking you through sample problems and situations followed by graphs and tables demonstrating the technique--and you can even check your results. The section on creating programs does seem to be written for the technically ignorant, addressing in detail how you could possibly benefit from using programs, but it'll still help you get the job done.

In general, it's a bit slower than newer models, just like last year's computer isn't as speedy as today's new release. On the plus side, it's just 3 by 5 inches and slips easily into a pocket. The bottom is printed with a few little cheat notes for common functions, which is nice for quick reference. The HP 12C's one-year warranty and available tech-support line offer reassurance this little workhorse will continue to be an industry standard for years to come. --Jill Lightner

Pros:

• Pocket size
• Thorough and simple instruction manual
• Competitive price

Cons:

• Calculates more slowly than modern machines

Editorial Review

We're definitely taking this along with us the next time we shop for a house. Though it takes a little effort to master the collection of financial worksheets available on the Texas Instruments BA II Plus, you'll be glad you invested the time and money in this fine financial calculator.

The BA II Plus operates in standard calculator and worksheet modes. The standard mode lets you perform common math as well as operations involving the time value of money--that is, applications such as mortgages or annuities in which payments are equal and evenly spaced. You can also perform trigonometric functions in standard mode.

The more hard-core worksheet mode includes tables for amortization, bond, depreciation, and compound interest. If you're not familiar with such calculations, the very helpful user's manual will guide you through the process. All previous worksheet values are stored in memory, so you don't have to retype all the bond maturity or cash flow analysis figures.

The average user who wants to calculate a basic loan payment will be more comfortable working in the standard calculator mode. We were using the BA II Plus tools for calculating basic interest and payment periods within minutes. Still, it's good to know that the more advanced features are available for those who require heavy-duty financial computing.