Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company's True Value

FINANCIAL FINE PRINT

"A must-read for any investor serious about knowing what they own. With the help of some of the best financial detectives, Michelle Leder provides a roadmap for delving beneath the surface — where most investors dare not tread."
—Herb Greenberg, Columnist, TheStreet.com and Fortune magazine

"Obfuscators beware! Michelle Leder has cracked the code. In this invaluable guide to combing the footnotes of financial statements for indicators of accounting tricks and attempts to hide the bad news needles in a haystack of numbers. This is a clear, sensible, and, above all, practical guide that will be indispensable for anyone who invests in, does business with, or works for a corporation."
—Nell Minow, Editor, The Corporate Library

"Too many companies would prefer that you not read the footnotes," observes former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt. "That should be incentive enough to delve into them." In fact, not only do companies prefer you ignore the details they are required to report—the pesky particulars on exactly how they account for those whopping earnings—they take calculated steps to make this information as hard as possible to understand. But for those who know how to look, the facts that predict a company's true prospects are usually hidden in plain sight.

Financial Fine Print gives you the tools you need to break down annual reports and SEC filings, make sense of the deliberately cryptic language of footnotes, and get the real goods on a potential investment. To make money in today's tough market, investors have to make eliberate, well-researched choices. To do this requires not only having the right information, but also knowing how to decode it. With their obscuring tactics, companies won't help you any. So be advised: those who would help themselves—and expect to profit—should get down to the nitty-gritty of Financial Fine Print.