Rating: 
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: A special note in the preface of this book explains that it went to press just as the Enron story was beginning to break. Three of its chapters provide almost all the information anyone would have needed to spot the problems at Enron, not to mention at the other big corporations whose scandals made recent headlines. Spotting fraud isn't that hard. The authors provide a very useful toolkit that even a novice investor can use. Some of their coverage of the regulatory apparatus will no doubt have to be changed in future editions, as the regulations themselves keep changing, but this enlightening introduction to the nitty-gritty of skeptical financial statement analysis will have enduring utility. It's written by accountants, so it gets a bit plodding in spots, but their anecdotes relieve the tedium and their information is invaluable. We recommend this reality check for every investor's bookshelf, as well as every employee's and every financial reporter's. Anyone who depends on corporate performance or who uses corporate financial statements should read it.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect timing
Review: Definitely the best resource out in the market to help you learn everything you need to know about financial statement analysis and creative accounting pratices. With all the accounting upheaval Enron has caused, this book has perfect timing for anyone who is involved in the 'numbers game' of the accounting world.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Texts for Improving Security Analysis
Review: Having recently worked through all three of Mulford and Comiskey's financial reporting texts, I'd like to comment on them as a group.
The Financial Reporting Game contains unique material which I have not seen outside of specialized academic journals, and discusses most of the parameters I use in my own earnings manipulation model, developed through painful experience and correspondence with other practitioners. I suggest this text as a more efficient means to acquire this knowledge. The first five chapters of introductory material discuss the motivation and consequences of earnings manipulation from the viewpoint of the regulator, the reporter, and the user of financial statements. While the preliminary chapters are less quantitative than the rest of the book, I believe they cover the subject far more comprehensively than Fridson's Financial Statement Analysis, or any other text I can recall. Guide to Financial Reporting and Analysis is indispensable, and one of the most practical texts on applied security analysis available. The efficient search procedure for non-recurring items is alone worth the cost of the book. I'm convinced that one of detriments to effective use of periodic and annual financial statements is the opacity of the notes to consolidated financial statements and their frequently indecipherable relation to the consolidated tables themselves. The authors propose and demonstrate a framework for relating complex financial notes into the core activity of the security analyst, which is measuring the sustainable earnings power of the corporation under study. Financial Warnings predates Guide to Financial Reporting and Analysis by four years. Its focus is on how corporate accounting choices can change perceptions and calculations of sustainable earnings power [and consequently stock valuation]. Financial Warnings suggests and demonstrates clear techniques for analyst restatements. I found it helpful to work through Financial Warnings after I had completed Guide to Financial Reporting, in order to test my understanding of the accounting principles discussed. To sum up, I strongly feel that if you take the time with a spreadsheet and a 10K to work along with the dozens of examples provided by the authors in each of the texts, the quality of your financial analysis will improve both in accuracy and in rigor.
Rating: 
Summary: Mildly disappointed
Review: I had already read one of the authors' previous books, and unfortunately this one didn't break any new ground. The other book was very good; and perhaps, had I read this one first it would rate higher than three stars. There was quite a bit of repetition, also. Not only from book to book but within this book itself. The chapters can be very redundant. Did I mention the chapters can be very redundant ;-) I kept waiting for the 'meat' and it never seemed to come. The first half of the book seemed more like filler material. Okay, I thought, when they get to the analysis it will all be worthwhile. Unfortunately, that fell short as well. Want to know their secret to detecting Accounts Receivable and Inventory trouble? Well, it's Days Sales Outstanding and Days Inventory Outstanding. If those are new concepts for you the book probably rates a 4; if that's old hat then it's more in the 2-3 range. There are nice examples and a decent chapter in the end on discovering 'tricks' used in the Statement of Cash Flow. Keep in mind, my bias of reading the other book first; but it now seems they've written the same book three times (though the price of the books keeps coming down - that's good!) w/o advancing the ball too far down the field.
Rating: 
Summary: Alternative view: Big Disappointment
Review: I ordered this book based on the positive Amazon reviews,
but it is a major disappointment. The authors belabor
the obvious. Their major points would not be a surprise to
anyone with minimal coursework in accounting, with cursory
experience looking at financial statements, or anyone who
has spent a little time watching CNBC. The redundancy
is mind-numbing. Maybe hormone crazed undergraduates need
to see the same points over and over again, but intelligent
and attentive readers shouln't have to waste their time.
Enron does not even make it into the index, nor could I
find any of their financial smoke-screens mentioned in the
text. I would never spend another dime on work by these
authors, ...
Rating:
Summary: Helped me understand a company's TRUE financial performance
Review: I really liked this book. It helped me understand how companies (like Enron) can mistate their financial results. It also shows how to get to a company's TRUE financial performance. A must read for anyone who wants to be smarter about analyzing stocks and not be blindsided by another company using creative accounting practices.
Rating:
Summary: State your point and move on already
Review: I stopped reading this book fifty pages into it. The book is very repetitive. I'm having a hard time getting motivated to pick it up again.
Rating:
Summary: State your point and move on already
Review: I stopped reading this book fifty pages into it. The book is very repetitive. I'm having a hard time getting motivated to pick it up again.
Rating:
Summary: Turning over rocks by the hundreds
Review: In this well written book, the authors show you that there are far, far more ways of cooking a company's books that you would ever imagine. From not reserving for bad debts, to channel stuffing, to capitalizing operating costs, the ingenuity of executives apparently knows no bounds in their efforts to make things look better than they are. Just as important, the authors show you where to look in a company's financial statements for signs of the bad practices they describe. This should be a must read for anyone who does significant investing or who just wants to understand how the Enrons and Adelphias of the world manage to get away with their tricks so long.
Rating:
Summary: Turning over rocks by the hundreds
Review: In this well written book, the authors show you that there are far, far more ways of cooking a company's books that you would ever imagine. From not reserving for bad debts, to channel stuffing, to capitalizing operating costs, the ingenuity of executives apparently knows no bounds in their efforts to make things look better than they are. Just as important, the authors show you where to look in a company's financial statements for signs of the bad practices they describe. This should be a must read for anyone who does significant investing or who just wants to understand how the Enrons and Adelphias of the world manage to get away with their tricks so long.
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