NYT Analyzing Financial Statements: 25 Keys to Understanding the Numbers

by Eric Press

From balance sheets to income statements, learn the keys to unlocking the powerful and useful information buried in common financial statements.

Genres: Business, Finance

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Value Investor]

Not sure why this is getting so low reviews. It’s a short and informative book that is a friendly introduction to accounting rules and explains the why behind concepts. Very dated as it references 25 year old FASB directives, but the accounting wisdom never changes.

I learned about certain nuggets of reading financial statements, such as the pooling vs purchase approach of acquisitions, LIFO reserves, and discretion that management has in breaking up segments based on OI or NI.

[Daniel]

A dated list of key points to examine when reading financial statements.

[Eric]

What was I thinking?

[Denny Troncoso]

A good overview of the basics. Little depth.

[Jon]

I found this to be pretty bad. If you really know nothing about financial statements this will not help you. It goes fairly quickly into advanced territory before covering the basics. I'm unsure what the purpose of this recording was.

In any case, if you want to know about financial statements look no further than Khan Academy. Far better.

[Abbas Mouffok]

Analyzing Financial Statements is a clear, structured guide to understanding business numbers. The “25 keys” approach makes financial analysis practical and easy to apply, especially for managers and entrepreneurs who make decisions based on real statements, not theory. It’s not an advanced finance manual, but as a practical foundation, it’s very effective and worth reading.

[Stephanie]

This is merely a summary of some of the important points in a typical Accounting 101 class, but not terribly useful to those who have already taken that type of class.

[Major Doug]

Listened to this book: references are a bit dated; however, the outline of GAAP is good.

[Don]

worthy introductory and more

[Lori Tian Sailiata]

Nice, very brief overview

[Ryan Morton]

Short & sweet introduction into financial statements. Nothing to write home about, but a good 1st read to educate yourself on the topic.

[Shanta]

The book didn't explain the key concepts at as much detail as I was hoping for.