Product Description

First published in 1937, this is a comprehensive guide to reading and understanding financial documents such as balance sheets and profit and loss statements. It is a practical and accessible guide for business people, bankers and investors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #238497 in Books
• Published on: 1998-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Review
"This reissue of the classic 1937 edition ... is right on time.... [The] basic study of financial statements by the average investor is more important than ever.-From the Introduction by Michael F. Price, president, Franklin Mutual Advisors, Inc."Graham's ideas ... formed the framework of thinking about the stock market that has inspired the investment community for nearly a century."-Smart Money"Graham ranks as this century's (and perhaps history's) most important thinker on applied portfolio investment."-John Train, author of The Money Masters

Customer Reviews

Why'd Didn't They Republish the 3rd Edition?
Why they republished this edition when they might have republished the Second Revised Edition (by Graham and Charles McGolrick, originally published in 1964) beats me. The latter is unquestionably better,as it is more current, and contains more tips. Yet even the 1964 edition is pretty dated (there is no discussion of cash flow statement interpretation, for example, although Graham alludes to cashflow somewhat disparagingly in this later edition). One might argue that there is value in going back to the 1st edition of this small volume as one might go back to the 1st edition of Security Analysis. There are indeed nuggets in the 1st edition of Security Analysis which have been mysteriously removed from later editions. But that isn't true with The Interpretation of Financial Statements. If you can find a copy of the 1964 edition of this book, you will likely find it more useful than the original.

simple and easy to understand
This book is very much for beginners and explains everything that you need to analyse a financial statement in very simple terms. It is a very good buy for novices though a bit expensive for such a small book. The other excellent book is the intelligent investor and security analysis. Be warned that the security analysis is very heavy reading!!!! I throughly recommend this book for people to understand how to interpret a finacial statement- it does what it says on the cover as such.

Rather outdated...
I read this book because I'm interested in Graham's value investing approach. However, this approach is not discussed in this book. A brief and very basic introduction to financial statements is given, but, as this book is from 1964 (and the first print even older), this overview is rather outdated. Rules and regulations have changed and the environment too (in the book railroad companies are often used as example). Read the other books of Graham if you want to know more about value investing, but to study financial statements I would recommend picking an other book.