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Your personal roadmap to becoming fluent in financial reports
At first glance, the data in financial reports might seem confusing or overwhelming. But, with the right guide at your side, you can learn to translate even the thickest and most complex financial reports into plain English.
In Reading Financial Reports For Dummies, you'll move step-by-step through each phase of interpreting and understanding the data in a financial report, learning the key accounting and business fundamentals as you go. The book includes clear explanations of basic and advanced topics in finance, from the difference between private and public companies to cash flow analysis.
In this book, you'll also find:
* Full coverage of how to analyze annual reports, including their balance sheets, income statements, statements of cash flow, and consolidated statements
* Real-world case studies and financial statement examples from companies like Mattel and Hasbro
* Strategies for analyzing financial reports to reveal opportunities for operations optimization
Reading Financial Reports For Dummies is a can't-miss resource for early-career investors, traders, brokers, and business leaders looking to improve their financial literacy with a reliable, accurate, and easy-to-follow financial handbook.
List of contents
Introduction 1
Part 1: Getting Started with Financial Reports 5
Chapter 1: Opening the Cornucopia of Reports 7
Chapter 2: Recognizing Business Types and Their Tax Rules 19
Chapter 3: Public or Private: How Company Structure Affects the Books 27
Chapter 4: Digging into Accounting Basics 45
Part 2: The Big Show: Annual Reports 63
Chapter 5: Exploring the Anatomy of an Annual Report 65
Chapter 6: Balancing Assets against Liabilities and Equity 79
Chapter 7: Using the Income Statement 95
Chapter 8: The Statement of Cash Flows 111
Chapter 9: Scouring the Notes to the Financial Statements 123
Chapter 10: Considering Consolidated Financial Statements 141
Part 3: Analyzing the Numbers 155
Chapter 11: Testing the Profits and Market Value 157
Chapter 12: Looking at Liquidity 175
Chapter 13: Making Sure the Company Has Cash to Carry On 187
Part 4: How Companies Optimize Operations 199
Chapter 14: Turning Up Clues in Turnover and Assets 201
Chapter 15: Examining Cash Inflow and Outflow 213
Chapter 16: How Companies Keep the Cash Flowing 223
Part 5: The Many Ways Companies Answer to Others 231
Chapter 17: How Companies Find Errors: The Auditing Process 233
Chapter 18: Government Regulations and Reporting Requirements 243
Chapter 19: Creating a Global Financial Reporting Standard 255
Chapter 20: Understanding the Analyst-Corporation Connection 265
Chapter 21: How Companies Communicate with Shareholders 277
Chapter 22: Keeping Score When Companies Play Games with Numbers 291
Part 6: The Part of Tens 315
Chapter 23: Ten Financial Scandals That Rocked the World 317
Chapter 24: Ten Signs That a Company's in Trouble 327
Glossary 333
Index 341
About the author
Lita Epstein, MBA is a financial writer who focuses on career growth and business topics. She earned her MBA from Emory University and her BA from Rutgers University. Lita has written more than 40 books, including the previous editions of Reading Financial Reports For Dummies.
