Financial statements are fundamental to any business, large or small. They are actually report cards on the performance of the business. When reading them, you will encounter odd terminology, strange calculations, and of course, big numbers. But what insight can they give you as a manager, owner, or investor? How can you use financial statements to manage the business or be a wiser investor without having to become a CPA? And what in the world do some of those terms mean and how do you use them? With the guidance in this book, if you can read a nutrition label or a baseball box score, you can learn to read basic financial statements. There are four main financial statements. They are balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, and statements of shareholders equity. It is important to note that a financial statement does NOT tell the complete story. Combined, however, they provide very powerful information for business owners, managers, and investors. Information is the best tool when it comes to managing and investing wisely. This new easy to follow book will make you an expert on financial statement interpretation including: profit and loss statements (income statements), balance sheets, financial analyses, profit analyses, break-even analyses, and ratios. The book includes an extensive glossary useful lingo and hundreds of hints, tricks, and secrets about how to read these statements and use them to your advantage. Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company president's garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.

Covers numerous aspects of financial analysis, including an overview of the institutional environment, income statements, balance sheets, the statement of cash flows and the quality of reported earnings and assets.

"All investors, from beginners to old hands, should gain from the use of this guide, as I have." From the Introduction by Michael F. Price, president, Franklin Mutual Advisors, Inc. Benjamin Graham has been called the most important investment thinker of the twentieth century. As a master investor, pioneering stock analyst, and mentor to investment superstars, he has no peer. The volume you hold in your hands is Graham's timeless guide to interpreting and understanding financial statements. It has long been out of print, but now joins Graham's other masterpieces, The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis, as the three priceless keys to understanding Graham and value investing. The advice he offers in this book is as useful and prescient today as it was sixty years ago. As he writes in the preface, "if you have precise information as to a company's present financial position and its past earnings record, you are better equipped to gauge its future possibilities. And this is the essential function and value of security analysis." Written just three years after his landmark Security Analysis, The Interpretation of Financial Statements gets to the heart of the master's ideas on value investing in astonishingly few pages. Readers will learn to analyze a company's balance sheets and income statements and arrive at a true understanding of its financial position and earnings record. Graham provides simple tests any reader can apply to determine the financial health and well-being of any company. This volume is an exact text replica of the first edition of The Interpretation of Financial Statements, published by Harper & Brothers in 1937. Graham's original language has been restored, and readers can be assured that every idea and technique presented here appears exactly as Graham intended. Highly practical and accessible, it is an essential guide for all business people--and makes the perfect companion volume to Graham's investment masterpiece The Intelligent Investor.

Hidden somewhere among all the numbers in a financial report is vitally important information about where a company has been and where it is going. This Fourth Edition is designed to help anyone who works with financial reports—but has neither the time nor the need for an in-depth knowledge of accounting—cut through the maze of accounting information to find out what those numbers really mean. In this edition an entirely new and carefully designed exhibit is used to visually illustrate the connecting links among the three key statements in a financial report (the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow statement). This center-piece exhibit—used throughout the text—includes a two-year comparative balance sheet to explain the cash flow statement much more effectively. Also features a new chapter on the making and changing of financial reporting rules and updated information on new legislation.

Discover how to decipher financial reports Especially relevant in today's world of corporate scandals and new accounting laws, the numbers in a financial report contain vitally important information about where a company has been and where it is going. Packed with new and updated information, Reading Financial Reports For Dummies, 3rd Edition gives you a quick but clear introduction to financial reports–and how to decipher the information in them. New information on the separate accounting and financial reporting standards for private/small businesses versus public/large businesses New content to match SEC and other governmental regulatory changes New information about how the analyst-corporate connection has actually changed the playing field The impact of corporate communications and new technologies New examples that reflect current trends Updated websites and resources Reading Financial Reports For Dummies is for investors, traders, brokers, managers, and anyone else who is looking for a reliable, up-to-date guide to reading financial reports effectively.

The purpose of this book is to help readers understand the basics of understanding financial statements. Material covered includes a step-by-step instruction on how to read and understand the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement. It also covers information about how these three statements are interconnected with one another.