Reading Financial Reports For Dummies, 4th Edition

Lita Epstein, MBA is a financial writer who focuses on career growth and business topics. She earned her MBA from Emory University and her BA from Rutgers University. Lita has written more than 40 books, including the previous editions of Reading Financial Reports For Dummies.

Introduction 1 Part 1: Getting Started with Financial Reports 5 Chapter 1: Opening the Cornucopia of Reports 7 Chapter 2: Recognizing Business Types and Their Tax Rules 19 Chapter 3: Public or Private: How Company Structure Affects the Books 27 Chapter 4: Digging into Accounting Basics 45 Part 2: The Big Show: Annual Reports 63 Chapter 5: Exploring the Anatomy of an Annual Report 65 Chapter 6: Balancing Assets against Liabilities and Equity 79 Chapter 7: Using the Income Statement 95 Chapter 8: The Statement of Cash Flows 111 Chapter 9: Scouring the Notes to the Financial Statements 123 Chapter 10: Considering Consolidated Financial Statements 141 Part 3: Analyzing the Numbers 155 Chapter 11: Testing the Profits and Market Value 157 Chapter 12: Looking at Liquidity 175 Chapter 13: Making Sure the Company Has Cash to Carry On 187 Part 4: How Companies Optimize Operations 199 Chapter 14: Turning Up Clues in Turnover and Assets 201 Chapter 15: Examining Cash Inflow and Outflow 213 Chapter 16: How Companies Keep the Cash Flowing 223 Part 5: The Many Ways Companies Answer to Others 231 Chapter 17: How Companies Find Errors: The Auditing Process 233 Chapter 18: Government Regulations and Reporting Requirements 243 Chapter 19: Creating a Global Financial Reporting Standard 255 Chapter 20: Understanding the Analyst-Corporation Connection 265 Chapter 21: How Companies Communicate with Shareholders 277 Chapter 22: Keeping Score When Companies Play Games with Numbers 291 Part 6: The Part of Tens 315 Chapter 23: Ten Financial Scandals That Rocked the World 317 Chapter 24: Ten Signs That a Company's in Trouble 327 Glossary 333 Index 341