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Review
"The author's purpose is "to equip the financial statement reader to better detect the use of creative accounting practices and avoid the equity-investment and credit-granting mistakes." A book for it's time" ("Strategic Finance," March 2002)
"With the collapse of Enron Corp., the January debut of the "Financial Numbers Game" could not have arrived at a more perfect time. The book focuses on educating investors on how to spot "creative accounting Practices." Co-Author Charles W. Mulford outlines a few basic guidelines for detecting-and preventing-creative accounting." ("SmartPros/Accounting News and Insights," March 2002)
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Praise for The Financial Numbers Game
"So much for the notion ′those who can, do–those who can′t, teach.′ Mulford and Comiskey function successfully both as college professors and real–world financial mercenaries. These guys know their balance sheets. The Financial Numbers Game should serve as a survival manual for both serious individual investors and industry pros who study and act upon the interpretation of financial statements. This unique blend of battle–earned scholarship and quality writing is a must–read/must–have reference for serious financial statement analysis."
–Bob Acker, Editor/Publisher, The Acker Letter
"Wall Street′s unforgiving attention to quarterly earnings presents ever–increasing pressure on CFOs to manage earnings and expectations. The Financial Numbers Game provides a clear explanation of the ways in which management can stretch, bend, and break accounting rules to reach the desired bottom line. This arms the serious investor or financial analyst with the healthy skepticism required to drive beyond reported results to a clear understanding of a firm′s true performance."
–Mark Hurley, Managing Director, Training and Development Global Corporate and Investment Banking, Bank of America
"After reading The Financial Numbers Game, I feel as though I′ve taken a master′s course in financial statement analysis. Mulford and Comiskey′s latest book should be required reading for anyone who is serious about fundamentally analyzing stocks."
–Harry Domash, Investing Columnist, San Francisco Chronicle and Publisher, Winning Investing
The Financial Numbers Game identifies the steps businesses may take to misstate financial performance and helps its readers to identify those situations where reported results may not be what they seem.
"So much for the notion ′those who can, do–those who can′t, teach.′ Mulford and Comiskey function successfully both as college professors and real–world financial mercenaries. These guys know their balance sheets. The Financial Numbers Game should serve as a survival manual for both serious individual investors and industry pros who study and act upon the interpretation of financial statements. This unique blend of battle–earned scholarship and quality writing is a must–read/must–have reference for serious financial statement analysis."
–Bob Acker, Editor/Publisher, The Acker Letter
"Wall Street′s unforgiving attention to quarterly earnings presents ever–increasing pressure on CFOs to manage earnings and expectations. The Financial Numbers Game provides a clear explanation of the ways in which management can stretch, bend, and break accounting rules to reach the desired bottom line. This arms the serious investor or financial analyst with the healthy skepticism required to drive beyond reported results to a clear understanding of a firm′s true performance."
–Mark Hurley, Managing Director, Training and Development Global Corporate and Investment Banking, Bank of America
"After reading The Financial Numbers Game, I feel as though I′ve taken a master′s course in financial statement analysis. Mulford and Comiskey′s latest book should be required reading for anyone who is serious about fundamentally analyzing stocks."
–Harry Domash, Investing Columnist, San Francisco Chronicle and Publisher, Winning Investing
The Financial Numbers Game identifies the steps businesses may take to misstate financial performance and helps its readers to identify those situations where reported results may not be what they seem.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
With an all-too-frequent occurrence, users of financial statements are shaken with disclosures by corporate managements that certain "accounting irregularities" have been discovered and, as a result, current- and prior-year financial results will need to be revised downward. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
With an all-too-frequent occurrence, users of financial statements are shaken with disclosures by corporate managements that certain "accounting irregularities" have been discovered and, as a result, current- and prior-year financial results will need to be revised downward. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
26 reviews
49 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Too basic and the title is really a misnomer
8 Mar 2005
Format:Hardcover
Given the promise of the book's title, I was disappointed. "The Financial Numbers Game" is really alomst a misnomer as the book spends many pages on explanations of basic accounting principles - much like an introductory textbook - and then discussed some of the more obvious creative accounting practices. What you do get from this textbook is an overall solid overview of basic GAAP, with a large number of real world examples (which is good). What you don't get is real insight into some of the more interesting ways companies use to manage earnings and their balance sheet. For example, I could not find anything on special purpose entities, off balance sheet financing, dirty surplus accounting, a meaningful discussion of EBITDA beyond the basics, and anything beyond the obvious, really. I also thought the discussion of receivable days was problematic (chapter eight). This may go into too much detail but the authors calculate this ratio based on the ending balance of accounts receivable rather than some average (eg, beginning and ending balance if nothing else is at hand). This actually distorts the ratio and results in an incorrect analysis of the development of receivables where they change between periods. This is not good for two academics.
As previous reviewers pointed out, the book has too many repetitions which a good editor should have caught.
I like the solid accounting overview and the multitude of examples the text provides and that merits three stars. If you are an MBA student who is interested in an accounting refresher, this may be a book for you. If on the other hand you are a professional analyst or investor - what the authors call serious readers of financial statements in their preface - then this will disappoint you.
As previous reviewers pointed out, the book has too many repetitions which a good editor should have caught.
I like the solid accounting overview and the multitude of examples the text provides and that merits three stars. If you are an MBA student who is interested in an accounting refresher, this may be a book for you. If on the other hand you are a professional analyst or investor - what the authors call serious readers of financial statements in their preface - then this will disappoint you.
31 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Excellent Texts for Improving Security Analysis
8 April 2002
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
32 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Frustrating but valuable
31 July 2002
Format:Hardcover
Mulford and Comiskey badly need an editor, clear-sighted and heartless. There is a wonderful book here, but it is maddeningly difficult to extract from the text as presented -- ill-organized and repetitive and in coverage, perhaps even haphazard (another reviewer note that they don't cover reserves -- true, and I wonder if this is simply an oversight?). That said, this remains the best introduction that I've seen to games managers play (and in which accountants cooperate). More extensive (and less jaunty) than Howard Schilit (Financial Shenanigans). For broader coverage on the limits of accounting, move on to Eccles, etc., "The ValueReporting (sic) Revolution." After the dust settles from the Enron imbroglio, M&C will surely want to do a new edition: here's hoping they keep the same wonderful content, with better focus and analysis.
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