Thursday, April 19, 2007

Books to read for Financial Statement Analysis

This may sound obvious but if you would like to learn how to perform Fundamental Analysis on a stock the best place to start would be to get your hands on a university approved textbook for any module teaching Financial Statement Analysis.

I am using Stephen H. Penman's "Financial Statement Analysis and Security Valuation".

The textbook I am using is clear and succint and the maths isn't too complex. Just a series of Present Value calculations. (Remember Arithmetic progressions and Geometric progressions in A. Maths? Yup. its along those lines!)

Forget about spending $20 - 30 on those skimpy 300 page paperbacks that tells you how to read and analyse financial stocks. They don't have the exercises and supplementary notes and in my opinion the detail necessary to help you gain any insight into what's going on in the financial statements.

You can get cheap copies of these textbooks on University noticeboards, especially towards the end of semester. I got mine for $50. Best value for money ever.

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