The helpful workbook to help practice assessing financial statements Financial statement analysis is essential as part of any well-organized financial portfolio. As a companion piece, Financial Statement Analysis Workbook: A Practitioner's Guide allows readers the opportunity to test and hone the skills put forward in Martin Fridson and Fernando Alvarez's Financial Statement Analysis, a resource devoted to providing the analytical framework necessary to make sense of the sometimes misleading numbers put forth by companies. Scrutinizing financial statements allows one to, for example, evaluate a company's stock price or determine merger or acquisition valuations. The Financial Statement Analysis Workbook, then, provides a pathway to become familiar with these methodologies in order to be prepared to use them in real-world scenarios. With the skills provided within, you can begin to undertake goal-oriented preparation for the practical challenges of contemporary business, and feel confident in your financial decision-making. This is aided by: Question-and-answer sections within this Workbook correspond to each chapter of Financial Statement Analysis Financial statement and computational exercises designed to require analysis and synthesis of concepts covered in the core text A full list of answers in the second half of the book that help explain pitfalls within the questions An essential tool for professional analysts, investors, and students, Financial Statement Analysis Workbook offers the perfect opportunity to help turn theory into reality.

Praise for HOW TO BE A BILLIONAIRE

"A truly enlightening work filled with fundamental strategies that have worked for others. Martin Fridson documents the essential principles inherent in every billionaire’s success."–Gordon Bethune, Chairman of the Board and CEO, Continental Airlines

"Martin Fridson has created the ultimate road map to the American Dream. He comes as close to extracting a formula for the acquisition of wealth as any book I have ever read."–Jeff Sagansky, CEO, Paxson Communications

"Martin Fridson’s book has a number of very insightful and thoughtful analyses, something you don’t pick up in many business schools." –Philip F. Anschutz, Chairman and CEO, The Anschutz Corporation

How to Be a Billionaire is the first comprehensive picture of the real strategies and tactics that built the great business fortunes of modern times. Packed with engaging accounts of titans like Ross Perot, Richard Branson, and Phil Anschutz, it will show you principles that can increase your wealth and business acumen to the mogul level.

Martin Fridson looks at the careers, the methods, and the minds of self-made billionaires to distill the common keys to titanic accumulations of wealth. He identifies the methods, beliefs, and behaviors every businessperson must understand and emulate to reach the pinnacle of riches. How to Be a Billionaire is a manual for success that every aspiring tycoon will benefit from.

The updated, real-world guide to interpreting and unpacking GAAP and non-GAAP financial statements In Financial Statement Analysis, 5th Edition, leading investment authority Martin Fridson returns with Fernando Alvarez to provide the analytical framework you need to scrutinize financial statements, whether you're evaluating a company's stock price or determining valuations for a merger or acquisition. Rather than taking financial statements at face value, you'll learn practical and straightforward analytical techniques for uncovering the reality behind the numbers. This fully revised and up-to-date 5th Edition offers fresh information that will help you to evaluate financial statements in today's volatile markets and uncertain economy. The declining connection between GAAP earnings and stock prices has introduced a need to discriminate between instructive and misleading non-GAAP alternatives. This book integrates the alternatives and provides guidance on understanding the extent to which non-GAAP reports, particularly from US companies, may be biased. Understanding financial statements is an essential skill for business professionals and investors. Most books on the subject proceed from the questionable premise that companies' objective is to present a true picture of their financial condition. A safer assumption is that they seek to minimize the cost of raising capital by portraying themselves in the most favorable light possible. Financial Statement Analysis teaches readers the tricks that companies use to mislead, so readers can more clearly interpret statements. Learn how to read and understand financial statements prepared according to GAAP and non-GAAP standards Compare CFROI, EVA, Valens, and other non-GAAP methodologies to determine how accurate companies' reports are Improve your business decision making, stock valuations, or merger and acquisition strategy Develop the essential skill of quickly and accurately gathering and assessing information from financial statements of all types Professional analysts, investors, and students will gain valuable knowledge from this updated edition of the popular guide. Filled with real-life examples and expert advice, Financial Statement Analysis, 5th Edition, will help you interpret and unpack financial statements.

What, if anything, do the most spectacular, high-performance periods of the twentieth-century stock market have in common? And most importantly: Can we predict when they will occur again?
In this fascinating investigation, acclaimed author and financial authority Martin S. Fridson probes the past, leading an exhilarating tour through each of the twentieth-century stock market's golden years. Illuminating, entertaining, and rich in historical anecdotes, Fridson's book treats us to the opinions and investment strategies of some of the most prominent and intriguing figures on the scene.
"Timely, informative, and highly readable . . . It Was a Very Good Year offers wonderful insights into the years that provided spectacular gains in the past. There are important lessons in this book for all investors."-Henry Kaufman, President, Henry Kaufman & Company, Inc.
"A useful and extremely entertaining book. It's loaded with fascinating stock market lore and helpful investment approaches. I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself along the way."-Byron R. Wien, Managing Director, Investment Strategist for U.S. Equities, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
"Financial history with a purpose-it is a Very Good Book."-James Grant, Editor, Grant's Interest Rate Observer
"With this book, Marty Fridson joins the ranks of the must-read economic and financial historians. He is that rare combination of scholar, wit, raconteur, and man with an eye on the bottom line. Read it for amusement, education, or profit. You can't lose."-Ben Stein, writer, law professor at Pepperdine University and host of Win Ben Stein's Money

Self-made billionaires all have one thing in common: they excel at making money. But hard work, thrift, and focus are only part of the story-you hold the rest of it in your hands. How to Be a Billionaire is the first comprehensive picture of the real strategies and tactics that built the great business fortunes of modern times. Packed with engaging accounts of titans like Ross Perot, Richard Branson, Phil Anschutz, John D. Rockefeller, Wayne Huizenga, Bill Gates, J. Paul Getty, and Kirk Kerkorian, How to Be a Billionaire will show you principles that can increase your wealth and business acumen to the mogul level.

How to Be a Billionaire looks at the careers, the methods, and the minds of self-made billionaires to distill the common keys to titanic accumulations of wealth. Each chapter explores a specific strategy and brings it to life through extended profiles of past and present masters of the art of making money.

Do you think innovation is the best way to prosper in business? Sam Walton, founder of the Wal-Mart retail chain, would tell you otherwise. The key to Walton's success was supreme devotion to copying the methods of other successful discounters.

What could be less complicated than buying low and selling high? But the ascent of

Warren Buffett, John Kluge, and Laurence Tisch to billionaire status depended on much more than an eye for good bargains. And if you're looking to thrive by outmanaging the competition, look no further than Richard Branson. When the founder of Virgin Atlantic needed to reduce his staff by 400 people, 600 volunteered to take off a few months on sabbatical.

How to Be a Billionaire identifies the methods, beliefs, and behaviors every businessperson must understand and emulate to reach the pinnacle of riches. A manual for success that can benefit every aspiring tycoon, it is a fascinating read for anyone intrigued by wealth and how it's gotten.

Praise for HOW TO BE A BILLIONAIRE

"How to Be a Billionaire offers fascinating insight into the subject of building wealth. As a result of his exhaustive research, Martin Fridson is able to explain the wealth-creation process from a unique perspective. As the reader will discover, there is no single formula for success, but there are certain categories into which these concepts can be placed. My personal advice is to remember the words of Winston Churchill who said, 'Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.'"

-Ross Perot

"Martin Fridson has created the ultimate roadmap to the American Dream. He comes as close to extracting a formula for the acquisition of wealth as any book I have ever read."

-Jeff Sagansky
CEO, Paxson Communications

"Martin Fridson's book has a number of very insightful and thoughtful analyses, something you don't pick up in many business schools."

-Philip F. Anschutz
Chairman and CEO, The Anschutz Corporation

"How to Be a Billionaire is a powerful arsenal of dead-on strategies for increasing your personal wealth and business acumen. Marty Fridson details the tactics of self-made billionaires with great intelligence and insight. I wish this book had been available when I was starting my career."

-Spencer Hays
Founder, Tom James Company
Executive Chairman, Southwestern/Great American, Inc.
Chairman, Athlon Publications

Priceless investment wisdom from two timeless classics

Can you imagine tulips trading at a higher price than gold? That's just what happened in 1634 as Tulipmania swept across Holland. Nearly a century later, stock prices in England soared as a bold proposal to pay off the national debt caused a fleet of bubble companies to form in its wake. But what happened when the bubbles burst? Did these famous incidents simply demonstrate the potential for market volatility, or did they reflect outbreaks of mass hysteria? Charles Mackay brought his own unique perspective to this, and a number of other remarkable episodes, when the legendary Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds first appeared in 1841.

The Dutch East India Company was the hot stock to watch in the early days of the Amsterdam stock exchange. But the price action became hard to unravel once speculation and treacherous deceit came into play. Market manipulation, it seems, was a factor even at the dawn of modern exchange trading. Joseph de la Vega's 1688 Confusión de Confusiones offered a firsthand account of seventeenth-century market complexities that rings remarkably true even today.

Exploring the sometimes humorous, sometimes devastating impact of crowd behavior and trading trickery on the financial markets, this book brilliantly combines two all-time investment classics. Financial analyst and author Martin S. Fridson is your guide, and the result is an insightful new volume that is a quirky, entertaining, and thoroughly intriguing journey back through time.

From the investment strategies of Bernard Baruch, to Japanese land prices, junk bonds, and the collapse of Baring Securities, the far-reaching influence of Mackay's and de la Vega's revered works remains potent and truly timeless. By juxtaposing Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Confusión de Confusiones, this unique book points up the interesting contrast in their respective conclusions. Mackay believed that "periodic outbreaks of mass hysteria" led to volatile market activity, while de la Vega saw "cunning behind the market's convulsions." Both interpretations are worth examining for their fascinating commentaries on market movement and investment psychology. Viewed from within the context of events of our own time, these classics are must reading for all those seeking a greater understanding of the stock exchange's frequently erratic behavior.

"The market never ceases to befuddle and beguile. These two venerable works are fixtures on the short lists for most valuable books on the securities markets, and investors continue to cherish them." —From the Introduction by Martin S. Fridson Managing Director, Merrill Lynch & Co. Author of Investment Illusions

Exploring the sometimes hilarious, sometimes devastating impact of crowd behavior and trading trickery on the financial markets, this book brilliantly combines two all-time investment classics. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Confusión de Confusiones take us from Tulipmania in 1634—when tulips actually traded at a higher price than gold—to the South Sea "bubble" of 1720, and beyond. Securities analyst and author Martin Fridson guides you on a quirky, entertaining, and intriguing journey back through time.

Chosen by the Financial Times as Two of the Ten Best Books Ever Written on Investment

Critical Praise . . .

"This is the most important book ever written about crowd psychology and, by extension, about financial markets. A serious student of the markets and even anyone interested in the extremes of human behavior should read this book!" —Ron Insana, CNBC

"In combining 'Extraordinary' with 'Confusion,' the result is not extraordinary confusion. Instead, with clarity, the book sears into modern investor minds the dangers of following the crowd." —Greg Heberlein, The Seattle Times

"Once upon a time, there was an emperor with no clothes. For the longest time no one noticed. As you will read in this marvelous book, there have been many naked emperors since. There will doubtless be many more." —Andrew Tobias, Author of Managing Your Money

"You will see between its staid lines (written in ye olde English and as ponderable as Buddha's navel) that, despite what the media says, nothing really important has changed in the financial markets in centuries." —Kenneth L. Fisher, Forbes

What, if anything, do the most spectacular, high-performance periods of the twentieth-century stock market have in common? And most importantly: Can we predict when they will occur again?
In this fascinating investigation, acclaimed author and financial authority Martin S. Fridson probes the past, leading an exhilarating tour through each of the twentieth-century stock market's golden years. Illuminating, entertaining, and rich in historical anecdotes, Fridson's book treats us to the opinions and investment strategies of some of the most prominent and intriguing figures on the scene.
"Timely, informative, and highly readable . . . It Was a Very Good Year offers wonderful insights into the years that provided spectacular gains in the past. There are important lessons in this book for all investors."-Henry Kaufman, President, Henry Kaufman & Company, Inc.
"A useful and extremely entertaining book. It's loaded with fascinating stock market lore and helpful investment approaches. I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself along the way."-Byron R. Wien, Managing Director, Investment Strategist for U.S. Equities, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
"Financial history with a purpose-it is a Very Good Book."-James Grant, Editor, Grant's Interest Rate Observer
"With this book, Marty Fridson joins the ranks of the must-read economic and financial historians. He is that rare combination of scholar, wit, raconteur, and man with an eye on the bottom line. Read it for amusement, education, or profit. You can't lose."-Ben Stein, writer, law professor at Pepperdine University and host of Win Ben Stein's Money

Whether you’re evaluating a company’s stock price, assessing its credit quality, or determining valuations for a merger or acquisition, deciphering the messages embedded within a company’s financial statements is critical–especially after the recent demise of so-called "solid" companies. This workbook will help you do this and much more, by allowing you to hone your skills and test the knowledge you’ve gained from reading Financial Statement Analysis, Third Edition.

Question-and-answer sections within this workbook correspond to each chapter of Financial Statement Analysis, Third Edition, so you can use this guide in conjunction with the actual text. Alternatively, you can use the self-administered tests that are also a part of this workbook to independently practice the skill of reading and understanding financial statements. Either way, using the Financial Statement Analysis Workbook will help you expand your skills in reading and analyzing financial statements–so you can successfully put your hard-won knowledge to work in the real world.