Product Review

Understanding the Corporate Annual Report: Nuts, Bolts, and A Few Loose Screws provides a clearly written, step-by-step guide to understanding corporate annual reports. Authors Fraser and Ormiston instruct readers on how to ignore the PR letters from the corporate management team, engaging graphics, and other “garnishes” that typically accompany current annual reports in order to focus on what really counts—a company's performance and financial health! Throughout the book, the authors examine management's attempts to manipulate earnings and other performance measures, and they explain what the numbers in the report really mean. Chapter titles include: I Told My Daughter Not to Invest in Enron; Earnings: Real and Imagined; Assets, Liabilities, and Equity: What a Firm Owes and Owns; Cash Flows: Operating, Financing, Investing; and a Comprehensive Analysis. For individuals trying to make sense—and dollars—out of corporations' annual reports.