Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company's True Value / Edition 1

by Michelle Leder

Overview

Thirty-five million individual investors jumped into the stock market for the first time during the late 1990s without asking questions about the stocks they were buying. When the bubble burst and the large number of accounting scandals began to grow, most investors didn’t know where to turn or whom to trust. Now it has become more important than ever for investors to take matters into their own hands.

Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company’s True Value lets individual investors in on the secrets that seasoned professional investors use when they evaluate a potential investment. Buried deep in a company’s quarterly (10-Q) and annual (10-K) reports are the real clues to a company’s financial health: the footnotes. At many large companies, these footnotes can run for more than 30 pages and for some corporations have doubled in the past five years, making them simply too important for investors to ignore.

Financial Fine Print spells out exactly what investors need to look for within the footnotes of a company’s reports in order to make better, more informed decisions. By using numerous examples of actual footnotes that have appeared in SEC documents, the book teaches investors in easy-to-understand language ways to spot – and avoid – future Enrons and Worldcoms (and Tycos and Adelphias and HealthSouths). For any investor who has spent the past three years watching their investments shrink and has begun to think about getting back into the market, this book provides the critical tools that investors need to know to avoid getting burned once again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780471433477
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	09/08/2003
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.15(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

Michelle Leder has been writing about personal finance and investing for the past fifteen years, including ten years spent as a business reporter and later editor for daily newspapers in New York, Florida, and Connecticut. A freelance journalist for the past five years, her articles have appeared frequently in the New York Times, as well as dozens of other publications appealing to a wide range of ages and income levels from AARP: The Magazine to Parents. Previously, she was the personal finance columnist for LifetimeTV.com’s "Money" and "Career" pages. As a daily journalist she won numerous awards, including the Society of Business Editors and Writers’ prestigious Best in Business award and numerous awards in annual Associated Press contests in New York, Florida, and Connecticut. She holds a degree in economics from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and lives in Peekskill, New York, with her husband, Scott, and dog, Kumara. This is her first book. Additional information about reading financial footnotes is available at www.footnoted.org or by contacting Michelle Leder at [e-mail].

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Table of Contents

Foreword.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

Chapter 1: Don’t Get Fooled Again.

Chapter 2: Reading the Fine Print Like a Pro.

Chapter 3: You Don’t Need to Be a Pro.

Chapter 4: Charge It!.

Chapter 5: Optional Illusions.

Chapter 6: All in the Family.

Chapter 7: Pensions in Wonderland.

Chapter 8: Debt by Many Other Names.

Chapter 9: Five Common Ingredients.

Chapter 10: Changing the World.

A Few Final Words.

Appendix A: A Cheat Sheet for Reading Key SEC Filings.

Appendix B: A Brief Walk through Qwest’s Fine Print.

Notes.

Index.

What People are Saying About This

Herb Greenberg

A must read for any investor serious about knowing what they own.
— Herb Greenberg, Columnist, TheStreet.com, Fortune Magazine

Editorial Reviews

"A must read for any investor serious about knowing what they own." (Herb Greenberg, Columnist, TheStreet.com, Fortune Magazine)

"It's beautifully written, combining both warmth and clarity, and as easy to read as it is to understand." (Better Investing Magazine, October 2003)

"The Financial Fine Print here is readable, useful and potentially profitable!" (Barron's Magazine, December 1, 2003)

"In my opinion "Financial Fine Print" is a must-read for any investor who wants to pick his or her own stocks." (Pittsburgh Tribune, December 21, 2003)

"With a book as indispensable as this, there's no...excuse to avoid wading into the thicket of footnotes before making financial decisions." (Better Investing Magazine, December 2003)

"Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company's True Value is one of the most informative books ever written for investors" (From the Foreword by Thornton "Ted" Oglove)

From the Publisher