Book Description
Convert theory into solutions
Applied Corporate Finance, Second Edition converts the theory and models in corporate finance into tools that can be used to analyze, understand, and help any business. With this hands-on guide, you can find real solutions to real corporate finance problems, using real-time data.
Offering a user perspective to corporate finance, this text poses three major questions that every business has to answer, and provides the tools and the analytical techniques needed to answer these questions.
1. Where do we invest our resources? (The Investment Decision)
The first part of the book shows how to assess risk and develop a risk profile for a firm, and convert this risk profile into a hurdle rate. You'll also learn basic rules for estimating the returns on any investment.
2. How should we fund these investments? (The Financing Decision)
Firms generally can use debt, equity, or some combination of the two to fund projects. This part of the book examines the relationship between this choice and the hurdle rate for analyzing projects, and shows how to use the financing decision to maximize firm value. You'll also find a framework for picking the right kind of security for any firm.
3. How much cash can and should we return to the owners? (The Dividend Decision)
The third part of the book establishes a process for deciding how much cash should be taken out of the business and in what form (dividends or stock buybacks).
The final chapter in the book ties the value of the firm to these three decisions, and provides insight into how firms can enhance value.
Customer Reviews:
Didactic manual.......2007-09-12
From my point of view the financial knowlagde this book transfer is very well organised. The grafics and figures help a lot. The secuence of chapters has been articstically estructured.
The simplicity of the appendixes is very helpful for non-specialist to have an aproximation to corporate finances.
Like Tina Turner once said, "Simply the Best".......2004-10-03
This book is just plain great from top to bottom. Damodaran makes it easy to get both the "bird's eye view" as well as the nitty gritty detail you want in a corporate finance text. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for something beyond an elementary understanding of finance.
Awesome.......2002-12-15
Its easily the best book on corporate finance (yeah! I have read brearley and myers, benninga, ...).
Highly recommended. If you want to MASTER corporate finance. simply buy and read the book. The case studies and excel spreadsheets are very good. Another recommendation for a good financial analysis book is the book by eric helfert - financial analysis. Both books teach finance in common speak which goes a long way in understanding this topic for a new student.
An indispensable guide.......2002-10-21
This book is one of my best investments I have ever made. It is perfectly suited for 1st year MBA students with no prior exposure to finance. The first principles chart appearing at the beginning of each chapter always drags the students to the basics of why we are doing things. Prof Damodaran seems to be an excellent teacher and makes corporate finance a fun subject. The support web site has wealth of information and most importantly solutions to problems(I have never understood why many books hardly bother to give answers to problems)are given. Don't do a corporate finance course without this book.
Great potential. Next edition should be a blockbuster........2000-10-24
The text gets 5 stars for the orientation, organization, and the on-line resources for the text. It describes exactly what you would want in an Applied Corporate Finance course. Unfortunately, I have to deduct 3 stars because the text contains too many typos and smple calculations which I specifically want my students not to make. This has been frustrating for my students, as well as myself. However, I am confident that when this problem is cleaned up, the book will be among the best Applied Corporate Finance text in the market. I strongly recommend a new, corrected edition.
Book Description
"Sometime in the next five years you may kick yourself for not reading and re-reading Kindleberger's Manias, Panics, and Crashes." -Paul A. Samuelson, Institute Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"One never picks up a work by Charles Kindleberger without anticipating a feast of entertainment. But underneath the hilarious anecdotes, the elegant epigrams, and the graceful turns of phrase, Kindleberger is deadly serious. The manner in which human beings earn their livings is no laughing matter to him, especially when they attempt to do so at the expense of one another." -from the Foreword by Peter L. Bernstein, author of Against the Gods and The Power of Gold
Praise for Manias, Panics, and Crashes
"Classic. . . . Manias, Panics, and Crashes is a durable guide to meditation: wise, witty, and practical. It is a template against which to measure the latest financial crisis-whatever and whenever that happens to be." -David Warsh, Boston Globe
"Definitive." -Floyd Norris, New York Times
"Menacing..." -The New Yorker
"[Manias, Panics, and Crashes] is a scholarly account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries."-Richard Lambert, Financial Times
"This book sparkles with the best of Kindleberger's wit, insight, and passion for financial history. A real delight."-Robert Z. Aliber, Professor of International Economics and Finance, University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business
"What long has been the best history of financial pathologies is now even better. The reader who absorbs Kindleberger's lessons will be prepared to foresee and navigate the financial crises that surely lie ahead. Like a true classic, Manias, Panics, and Crashes is both timely and timeless." -Richard Sylla, Kaufman Professor of Financial History, Stern School of Business, New York University
Customer Reviews:
A classic -- but showing its age.......2006-09-25
This book probably deserves the title of "classic", being one of the first attempts by an economist to popularize for a broader audience a theory of speculative financial bubbles that takes into account "modern" macroeconomic theory (e.g. Keynes and the monetarists). The book identifies many common themes among some of the great financial manias in history, providing along the way some entertaining anecdotes and commentary.
Nevertheless, classic or not, I was a bit disapointed with the book. After 30 years and several editions it seems to be showing its age, with numerous uneven and unconvincing attempts to update the text to the late 20th century. I also found that the many historical examples were not well told or clearly differentiated and tended to blend together. Chancellor's "Devil take the Hindmost" seems to do a better job at providing a history of the great speculative bubbles. Most importantly, Kindelberger writes alot about what goverbnments should do after crashes occur, but he does not help much with a useful framework for spotting bubbles as they emerge -- or understanding how they tend to unravel.
Great Scholarly work but how does an investor make a buck?.......2006-02-26
I don't recommend this book for a general business audience. It does a fine job of chronicling various panics. I was hoping for a book that focused on causes of panics and manias and how to identify one when you are in it.
Speculation leads to disaster and must be borne by the central bank........2005-12-08
Speculation excesses are referred too as mania and revulsion from these excesses take the form of crisis, crashes, or panic which are historically common. The excess speculation builds as investor seize new opportunities for profits and are overdone. Hyman Minsky describes these new opportunities as the result of displacement. Displacement are events leading up to a crisis, such as, outbreak or end of war, bumper harvest or crop failure, widespread adoption of an invention, or some political event. Displacement must be a significant size. Displacement brings opportunities for profit and increased demand causes price to rise. Banks artificially increase supply without proportional increases in demand by expanding the money supply that demand would have generated. The money supply expansion is notoriously unstable. Feedback fuels Euphoria for price increase; the Euphoria turns investment from really valuable products to delusional ones. Boom is characterized as rising interest rates, as Banks threaten discredit and hedge against the speculation by raising rates; trading velocity increases and the velocity of circulation and turnover ratios rise; and stock prices increases. Boom is fed by expansion caused by bank credit; credit increases the money supply and destablizes the investment.
Once the excessive character of the upswing is realized, the financial system experiences a distress and then rushes to reverse expansion resembling panic: real or financial assets converting to money, premature repayment of debt, and prices crashes in commodities. Minsky explains that selling at the top falters because there is not enough money too sell out at the top.
Revulsion of the commodity halts banks from lending on the commodity as collateral, this is called discredit. Discredit leads the panic as people crowd to get out the door. People may stop trying to get out the door, if price falls and the commodity looks like a bargin, trade is cut and price declines stop hemmoraging, or a lender convinces the market money will become available. When the economy becomes depressed, Banks view borrowing as a risky prospect and may prefer to put their money in government securities.
Banks fail when too many borrowers default on their loans and the borrowers collateral is not enough to cover the debt. Inflation and deflation should not affect long term growth. When prices fall a corresponding drop in wages also may occur. Employment and purchasing power remain neutral. Wo, comes unto the borrower. The borrower suffers because the debts are fixed. The creditor benefits because expense money is returned in debt payments and this money can buy more, a value added function. Depression is characterized by a reluctance for banks to loan money, discreditation of the commodities to be used as collateral decreases the amount of loanable money the bank is willing to extend to the borrower, and tight money slows growth.
The world markets operate as if men are rationale over the long run. Irrationality may exist as economic actors choose the wrong economic model, fail to account for a particular piece of information, or fail despite a rational expectation as lags between stimulus and reaction fail to meet expectation. Composite fallacy confuses the truth, as investors believe that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Speculation leads to disaster and must be borne by the central bank.
Superb treatment of the speculative nature of financial markets.......2005-09-29
Kindleberger's book provides massive historical evidence to support his assessment of the boom-bust nature of financial markets.Basically,speculative excesses,financed in large part by margin account loans and easy bank credit,leads to a pattern where the debt load of many market participants is overleveraged.Like the straw that breaks the camel's back,all it takes is an exogenous(or endogenous) shock to pop the speculative bubble .The value of the underlying assets of the overleveraged market participants collapses.These individuals go bankrupt,causing a chain reaction as other participants are impacted by the bankruptcies and up bankrupt themselves.Kindleberger correctly identifies the major theorists of this outlook as I.Fisher(his debt-deflation theory)and H.Minsky(his financial fragility theory).There are a few small defects.First,Benoit Mandelbrot's nearly fifty years of statistical-empirical work on the "wild " risk inherent in all of the different financial markets worldwide would have provided a perfect fit with the historical and anecdotal evidence that Kindleberger has collected.Second,there is only a brief footnote on the role of exogenous "sunspot"uncertainty going on in this historical process.Kindleberger overlooks the technical analysis of the effect of uncertainty, in microscopic,decision theoretic terms,on decisions made by Keynes(Keynesian uncertainty)and Ellsberg(Ellsbergian ambiguity).The problem here is not necessarily irrational decision makers,but rational decision makers who lack sufficient relevant information to apply the standard neoclassical decision techniques.These decision makers KNOW that they don't know.They then decide to follow those whom they believe are better informed.This leads to crowd,herd,and cascade effects that both creates the bubble and the crash.One possible way to stop this recurring pattern would be to eliminate margin loans Third,Kindleberger appears to be unaware that Keynes would agree with most of Kindleberger's case.From Keynes's early 1910 lectures on the negative impacts of speculation on stock markets through the A Tract on Monetary Reform,A Treatise on Money,and the General Theory(chapters 12,17,and 22),one can find Kindleberger's points explicitly considered in Keynes's work.Of course,Keynes does not provide the vast historical evidence that Kindleberger provides.Keynes would likely argue that ,since his theory is a general theory of decision making under conditions of risk,uncertainty,and ignorance that applies where ever organized financial markets exist,he would already know what the historical record would show if examined in historical detail.
A must for your collection.......2004-12-17
This book lays out the blueprint to spot a financial crisis in the making.
A. Plenty of money in supply and preferably at cheap rates.
B. A 'new technology'-from the birth of railroad stocks, to letter stocks of the 1960s and dot coms of the late 1990s.
C. A willing and enthusiastic media outlet (think CNBC and the dot com boom).
D. Cab drivers and plumbers suddenly trading actively in the respective markets. Another note I would throw in is when the investment community are saying 'it is different this time, simple valuation of securities is no longer possible'.
Kindleberger's work draws on this scenario time and time again.
A required reading for anyone actively trading in the markets.
Book Description
Bulls, bears, and the price of shares-the daily tallies of the stock market are on everyone's mind. The contemporary investor usually measures ownership via a confirmation blip on the computer screen; nevertheless, since the eighteenth century, stock certificates have visually charted the evolution of American industry. Now highly collectible, these documents are the ultimate melding of art and commerce, and The Art of the Market 200 years' worth of stocks on their artistic rather than their financial merits.
In the days before advertising and annual reports, the stock certificate projected a company's image of quality to the world through artwork and embellishments that epitomized the times-from the bold engravings of locomotives stamped on the shares of nineteenth-century railroad tycoons, to the sleek Art Deco styling from the early automobile era, to the graphic images for today's high-tech media giants. The Art of the Market presents more than 200 certificates that collectively render America's social and economic history through wars and peace, panics and prosperity. Each certificate is fully analyzed in artistic terms, while the lively text offers a compelling historic background on the capitalist mosaic.
Customer Reviews:
A great coffee table book.......2000-07-18
This book is an excellent reminder of a time when stocks meant more; when stock was something tangible you held vice keystrokes gone in the blink of an eye or memory stored on your computer. In the era of online trading, art such as this is sorely missed. The commentary is not particularly deep, however the art and the history is, for lack of a better word, neat. I think this book is well suited for the coffee table and a nice reminder of how things were "back then."
Great business history.......2000-05-12
I received this book as a gift, and was struck at first by its amazing "look"--it has top-notch graphics. The individual stock certificates are remarkable, and the book's authors make these images come to life as symbols of American business. The engraving of the certificates is treated as a vanishing art form, and this collection offers a reminder of just what is being lost as the market becomes more and more "virtual." At a time when more Americans own stock than ever before--and almost none of them, as the authors point out, have ever seen a stock certificate--this book represents nothing less than a hidden history of an American institution. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the stock market, but also to anyone interested in the history of American business and its influence on our culture.
Fantastic book for scripophily!.......2000-04-23
Wonderfully illustrated book showing the true definition of financial art. Beautiful full-color illustrations of stock certificates. Best part of the book is the price. Very affordable (a bargain for the art!)
A book where research of companies is at a minimum.......1999-12-26
I received this book for Christmas and just spent ten minutes laughing at the history of Xerox. The authors called the company's beginnings as the Harold company, then changed its name to the Harold Xerox Company. The original company's name was the Haloid Company, not the Harold Company. In my ten minutes of reading there was 4 more errors of company names or historical facts of the stock certificates. I did not read the "history" portion but feel if the authors can't get the histories of Xerox, Exxon, Playboy, Admiral, etc correct, why bother....The stock certificates are admirable, though
Book Description
Learn how these superstars invest, where they invest, what works--and what doesn't
Since people have been making money in the markets, investors and would-be investors have been fascinated with the money managers and traders who have extracted superior returns. In The New Investment Superstars, Lois Peltz examines fifteen of today's most successful investors by their area of expertise, including stock-picking, global macro trading, sector investing, and more. Readers will learn how these great investors approach the markets at a time when volatility is high and certainty low. From the thirty-five-year-old Lee Ainslie (Maverick Capital), dubbed the "Win-Win Investor" by Worth magazine, and Ken Griffin, the thirty-one-year-old who started his first hedge fund as a freshman at Harvard, to Lee Cooperman, long a star stockpicker at Goldman, we meet today's superior managers and learn how they do it.
Peltz reveals that these new stars are flexible traders who inherently understand that long-term wins come from recognizing that markets are ever-changing and that they must adapt. By reading about how they've succeeded and where they lost, investors will learn about market change, and how success is achieved.
Lois Peltz (New York, NY) was editor-in-chief of MAR/Hedge Funds, an investment performance reporting service, for eight years. She is now President and CEO of Investment Information Providers, an information services company that provides investment information services to the professional investment community.
Customer Reviews:
Useful background detracted by gross errors.......2002-11-11
Contains useful background information and insights on managers, and the industry though it is of limited use regarding the strategies those managers use. Two really glaring errors (page 48 & 49 on incentive fees, and Page 65 on correlations - perhaps a misquote or a quote out of context) cast doubt on the reliability of other statements in the book for me. Consequently I recommend reading it, but with more than the usual level of skepticism.
If you are looking for trading ideas, look elsewhere.......2001-10-12
This book contains an almost painful amount of detail concerning the organizational structure as well as the investor base of the hedge funds whose managers it profiles. Unfortunately, as far as actual trading strategies are concerned, it is a complete failure. It will tell you in which areas a fund is active, but give you excactly zero detail about the strategies and tactics used by its managers. Even some rather bad books I have read at least contained one or two ideas that were worth investigating, but I couldn't gain anything at all from this book. Also, some of the track records really aren't that impressive. Not really bad, but definitely not what you'd expect from "Superstars".
Waste of Time.......2001-09-04
Very poorly written. Comments were too general. Offered little insight regarding reasons for the success of the managers. Best part of the book was the compilation of track records for each of the managers.
A long awaited.......2001-07-11
complement to the John Train/Jack Schwager series of books on managers. This book measures up well with its well-regarded peers. Lois Peltz has collected interesting information on hedge fund manager, most of whom are unknown even to investment cognoscenti. They are in her book because of their stellar records, despite the low profile many share (due to strict marketing regs for these investment pools). For readers who want a peek behind the hedge fund curtain, this book is ideal. It captures the personalities and backgrounds of the managers, and it benefits from Peltz's analysis of commonalties and future thoughts on the industry. If you are investment professional looking to add a couple of nuggets to your repertoire, you might feel slightly let down (hence 4, not 5, stars). The eye opening aspect for me was the annual returns revealed for each of the managers. This information is not widely available, and the magnitude and consistency of the annual returns was amazing for several of the managers. The extent of and rationale behind leverage is explored as well. Overall, the book was excellent, and I was happy to add it to my extensive collection of investment related tomes.
An Immensely Valuable Book.......2001-06-06
It is rare to be able to read one book on a complex topic and have it contain information of use to both the novice and the veteran. Lois Peltz has done it in regard to hedge funds...the most erudite of investment arenas. Whether it be basic information (definitions, tables showing manager spin-offs, industry disasters) or advanced (the irony of having the objective of superior performance over the long-term being measured in 90 day intervals), this easily readable and fascinating treatise delivers. From her overview of superstar managers (including the counter-intuitive observation that they're not in it for the money but rather because they love the challenge) to the side-bars concluding each that allow the reader to compare highlights, the profiles are enlightening. Specific insights on managers (Bruce Kovner's analogy of managing money to painting, Paul Singer's analysis of model and herding risk, to Raj Rajaratnam's requirement that analysts performing due diligence fax in a daily "What I've learned" or risk not being reimbursed for their expenses) provide enormous understanding of each manager. Finally, her own perspective, including highlighting the issue of manager capacity, offers unusual help in selecting/understanding managers. A must-read!
Book Description
The Art of M&A, Third Edition, is the leading answer book in today's fast-changing, enormously complex merger world. Written in a handy, easy-reference Q&A format, this no-nonsense handbook covers everything from the early stages of locating a suitable target--or finding that you are a target--through the postmerger trials of turning multiple companies into one.
Synopses of nearly three dozen landmark cases give real life insights into legal rulings from previous high profile mergers. Over the past decade, The Art of M&A has helped thousands of executives make sound decisions. Now, let it provide all the information you will need to buy or sell companies, whether public or private, domestic or foreign.
Download Description
The Art of M
Customer Reviews:
Fourth Edition Due in March 2007.......2006-11-18
FROM THE CO-AUTHOR. Please be advised that a new FIVE STAR edition will be available in or around March 2007. The 1999 edition being sold here will be replaced at that time. Alexandra Reed Lajoux (Co-Author)
Very dated material.......2005-11-28
The Q&A approach adopted in this book is very useful. It would provide for a very useful reference manual on M&A if its content were not so dated. Its discussion of taxes, accounting, and deal structures does not reflect recent changes in rules and M&A practices. It would be helpful if the author would update the material. Other more current and more comprehensive books on the subject that I have found useful include Mergers, Acquisitions, and Other Restructuring activities by Depamphilis and Bruner's M&A book.
Excellent reference for beginners in M&A.......2005-10-11
Easy to use reference, it helped me get the answer instantly.
Great Reference Book.......2003-07-12
This is a fantastic reference tome for anyone involved with M&A. As a private equity Associate, I have found this book to be invaluable on multiple levels as both a reference guide for securities law, as well as for procedural issues such as sample formats for term sheets, DD check lists, etc.
Also, while it is a dense read, I think this would be invaluable for people just entering either Investment Banking or Private Equity to read as an introduction to the rules, regulations and procedures surrounding mergers/acquisitions.
Yes, this is a very focused topic, but it is a great book!.......2002-07-03
The very size of this book on such a specialized topic may seem daunting. However, the writing is so lively and the organization by question and answer is so easy to use that you will find this a very useful and comprehensive handbook.
It is NOT a theory laden textbook. Rather, it is a very useful and practical guide to the field and will help the careful reader avoid many pitfalls. There are many ways to make mistakes in buying companies and this book can open your eyes to quite of few of them. In fact, if you are the target of a buyout, this book can be of special importance and interest.
I admit to being fascinated by this topic so take that into consideration when evaluating what I say about this book. But even so, mergers and acquistions are so much in the news (for good and ill) that it can only help to get more background on what is really going on and how these deals are (or at least should be) put together.
The book reads MUCH shorter than its size and is fairly comprehensive on the subject - from the methods in selecting candidates for acquisition to what to do when you are a target of an acquisition to some very specialized topics. It also deals with M&A issues with both public, private, and even family firms.
Honestly, I am surprised at how glad I am that I bought this book. It is terrific.
Book Description
"Underneath the hilarious anecdotes, the elegant epigrams,s and the graceful turns of phrase, Kindleberger is deadly serious. The manner in which human beings earn their livings is no laughing matter to him, especially when they attempt to do so at the expense of one another. As he so effectively demonstrates, manias, panics, and crashes are the consequence of an economic environment that cultivates cupidity, chicanery, and rapaciousness rather than a devout belief in the Golden Rule." - From the Foreword to the Fourth Edition by Peter L. Bernstein, author Against the Gods and The Power of Gold
Praise for previous editions of Manias, Panics, and Crashes
"Classic....Manias, Panics, and Crashes is a durable guide to meditation: wise, witty, and practical. It is a template against which to measure the latest financial crisis-whatever and whenever that happens to be." - David Warsh, the Boston Globe
"Definitive." - Floyd Norris, The New York Times
[Manias, Panics, and Crashes] is a scholarly account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries." - Richard Lambert, Financial Times
"What long has been the best history of financial pathologies is now even better. The reader who absorbs Kindleberger's lessons will be prepared to foresee and navigate the financial crises that surely lie ahead. Like a true classic, Manias, Panics, and Crashes is both timely and timeless." - Richard Sylla, Kaufman Professor of Financial History, Stern School of Business, New York University
Customer Reviews:
A classic book on financial bubbles from an exceptional scholar.......2007-10-01
Kindleberger was a professor of economics at MIT, and a deep scholar of the history of financial bubbles and subsequent crashes. He proves with many examples that growth in the supply of credit is a fundamental factor in bubble development, stengthening associations of this type categorized by Hyman Minsky. While Kindleberger's writing is sometimes redundant, his amazing grasp of the details of financial history, numerous examples, and deep understanding more than compensate for this minor limitation of style. This book has been through 5 editions and is an indispensable reference; it is also a fascinating read. It should not to be missed by any serious investor, nor any student of financial manias and panics.
Writing after crashes is easy.......2007-09-04
Many causes for financial crashes. All have more or less the same pattern. A lot of publication appear after a crash, who will write before the crash?
This book gives good insight into financial chaos.
If you like investments, you need read this book. Now!.......2007-07-10
This book is exceptional.
After read it you will see the market, the history, and... Specially the warnings, with other eye.
Kindleberger wrote an excellent book about Manias, about Panics, about Crashes, about HOW keep alert!
Don't panic... just read it.
[...]
A History of Financial Crises by Kindleberger.......2007-06-10
This is heavy reading even for an academian, if I'm not mistaken. It goes on-and-on citing the details of finacial crises in history going back several centuries. There's no question that Mr Kindleberger's research is majestic. For any student that is exploring historical materials on finance, this book woould be a great source. One of the hardest part of this book is to sort out useable information for the average person that wants to be an alert investor.
John Casey
Northville, MI., 48167
Economic history.......2007-04-17
History always has lessons to teach us. In addition to comments by Golden Lion from Utah, I believed this book really spoke poignantly about the "adjustment process" of global or local market imbalances and the possible causes.
The causes are elaborated in many different examples from the Dutch Tulip crash to the dot-com crash. Signs of the excess liquidity, overly generous expectations of future demand, and other general characteristics are drawn from these events.
In the economic case where A has caused B, then B has caused C, and so on. If Z is a market crash, one cannot blame Y for losses. The book writes that its the cumulative effects of A-Y that has caused this, and more likely the pin-prick that pops a "bubble" is normally from a totally unexcepted source. To me, this was the greatest take away point -- naturally after every market crash we attempt to learn from our follies. However, the market has also learned and adapted, such that the next market failure is caused by a different set, but the same symptoms are similar to A-Y.
On the negative side, I wished that the latest version did a little better job at editing down the redundancies. For example, the Japanese real estate collapse in the early 1990's was used 5-7 times in different parts of the book -- in many cases, the underlying story was retold, even verbatim. I would disagree with one of the reviewers, that one needs an advanced degree to understand this book, however, an appreciation for economic theory is helpful, particularly monetary policies and capital markets. It does not require up-to-date knowledge of the stock, currencies, or bond markets.
Nevertheless, a good book to keep and re-read every few years. Always worth remembering our past mistakes and trying to create an edge.
Book Description
Interest rate swaps--used globally by both corporate finance departments and investment firms to control interest payments, manage debt, and enhance investment portfolios--constitute a growing 1.9 trillion market. Now, financial personnel, swap traders, corporate treasurers, and professional cash managers can turn to this clear, authoritative guide to master all the methodologies used in the international swap market. Written for anyone whose work is touched by swap market activity, the guide uses diagramming techniques to first explain what swaps are, and how and why they are traded. It then addresses more sophisticated financial transactions, such as rate setting, analysis of swap desks, market-to-market, speculating, and financial statements. Readers will find detailed coverage of more than two dozen derivative products, including spreadlocks, swaptions, caps, and flows, and learn how swap trading works in foreign currencies and interest rates. Critical light is also shed on questions regulators are currently raising about the security and future of the swaps markets.
Customer Reviews:
Me thinks some reviewers protest too much.......2004-07-11
This book has been damned for being too simplistic, therefore consign it to the trash cart, or so we are expected to do. But given the relative novelty of these financial products simplicity in the best sense of word could be seen as a virtue in any work dealing with this topic. So, why the evident annoyance from some. Could it be that this work dissolves some of the mystery involved, and threatens some closed shop in these markets ?
Outdated and Shallow.......1999-09-02
The book easily shows its age in its focus on standards and issues which have long ago fallen by the wayside in this dynamic market. Far worse is that the book is preciously short on quantitative and analytic methods, and long on third-grade-teacher types of admonishments. I read the whole book becasue I paid for it, there are better, more up-to-date volumes out there. Could possibly be re-named "Swaps for English Majors", although, English majors as a group might correctly be upset at this association.
Average customer rating:
- Well Written - Really Drives Home Impact to Those Affected but Not Involved
- Surprisingly interesting book
- good, workman-like explanation, approving yet critical
- Great overview of what is wrong with accounting...
- Very interesting prespective
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Inside Arthur Andersen: Shifting Values, Unexpected Consequences
Susan E. Squires ,
Cynthia Smith ,
Lorna McDougall , and
William R. Yeack
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Unaccountable: How the Accounting Profession Forfeited a Public Trust
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Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron
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Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
ASIN: 0131408968 |
Customer Reviews:
Well Written - Really Drives Home Impact to Those Affected but Not Involved.......2005-10-22
I never thought about the thousands of people all over the world who conscientiously practised their profession but were brought down by a series of scandals by people they never knew working in offices they never dealt with. This book is the fall of Arthur Andersen from their point of view. It details the history of Arthur Andersen from its founding until the end and tries to makes sense of what happened. They do a powerful job, making the reader sensitve to the size and corporate culture of Andersen and explaining how changes in the company to accomodate the changing demand for audit services opened the door to this kind of thing to happen. If you couple reading this book with books about Enron itself, you will definitely be feeling that only the people in Anderson involved in the scandal should have been brought down. That being said, they do leave in the "smoking guns" - the former scandals that had caused the SEC to say basically, "One more time and your dead" to Andersen. Enron was the one more time. Still, this book made me think that there might have been a better way of handling it.
Surprisingly interesting book.......2005-08-23
I had to read this book for school, and as one may figure before reading an accounting book, I was planning on it being a little boring. Contrarily, this book was very good. It was written by four ex-employees of Enron and Arthur Anderson, so it is very credible.
The book progressed very smoothly, and it made me very knowledgeable on what so many of us have heard, but so few really know about.
good, workman-like explanation, approving yet critical.......2004-12-01
I read this for a writing project and found it one of the best accounts available of what happened to make this company collapse the way it did. While there is occasionally a sense of victimization running through it - the authors all worked for AA or were affiliated with it - it does not stop them from hard-hitting analysis of how a company declined from iconic status as a standard-setter to one that was, well, slowly corrupted and traducing its values (like, the authors contend, all the other big accounting firms).
What this book adds is an analysis of how AA's governance evolved, from a tightly controlled firm with a charismatic leader to a global, highly decentralised one that was impossible to govern. This was a slow, evolutionary development with consequences that no one could have foreseen. Slowly, values eroded, a culture came undone, and the result was, in many cases, a naked scramble for money. In essence, accounting became a doorway to far more lucrative consulting arrangements, and so AA began increasingly to cooperate with those it was supposed to audit as a public service and with independence and integrity (as it clearly did in the past when the firm stood for something).
Where this book is weaker is on the wider context of the economy, which the reader will have to seek elsewhere. Moreover, while the SEC scrutiny - and the indictment that killed the company - may have been unfair, there were so many scandals developing that at least one firm was slated to take a fall. It was AA, as it turned out, somewhat a scapegoat in which many many good people got hurt, but still, in retrospect, it looks very very bad. I cannot feel outrage at its demise, though I do feel sympathy.
Recommended for specialists. This ain't pleasure reading, but the story is one that needs to be told as an ethics case study.
Great overview of what is wrong with accounting..........2004-11-01
The Good: It provides a decent overview of the history of Arthur Andersen leading to the Enron debacle, and a good historical perspective of events leading to the downfall of AA. Also reaches some interesting conclusions at the end.
The Bad: Like another reviewer said, there's no in-depth "inside" look at what was going on in the Houston office, or really any explanation for the Waste Management, Sunbeam or WorldCom restatements beyond what's presented in the overview. It's not so much "Inside Arthur Andersen" as it is "The Rise and Fall of Arthur Andersen".
The Ugly: It's really far too short, and too heavily reliant on newspaper and internal AA documentation. I found a lot of things informative and enlightening about the book--but I admit I knew almost nothing about what happened before I read this book. It's a great starting point, and it raises many more questions and paths of inquiry than it does answer or solve anything.
Very interesting prespective.......2003-08-14
I was with Andersen for 8 years up until the fall of the firm. This is the first book I have read about the firm the takes a methodical look at what exactly happened at one of the most prestigous firms in the world. If you are interested in Andersen's rise to power and some insight as to what it was like inside during the fall, then its a must read.
Book Description
Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance explores Fischer Black’s intellectual journey from Harvard to the offices of ADL, from the University of Chicago to MIT, and then to Goldman Sachs. Years of research and interviews with Black’s business and academic associates, as well as family and friends, are distilled into a scholarly yet personal story of the formation and development of the extraordinary mind and unique character of this unassuming renegade. This poignant book tells the story of one man’s intellectual adventure at the very center of modern finance. It is a story about the birth of quantitative finance and financial engineering. It is also the story about the continuing human quest to defeat the "dark forces of time and ignorance," as John Maynard Keynes famously put it.
Download Description
This vignette-based business biography captures the essence of an extraordinary man and a giant in the world of finance. After years of research and cooperation from nearly all of Black's associates, family members, and friends, author Mehrling explains the ground-breaking impact Fischer Black had on money, finance, and the world markets. You'll follow Black from his undergraduate studies in physics, mathematics, and computer programming to one of the most elite of firms on Wall Street, where he developed quantitative models that are still widely used today. Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance demystifies this genius and provides an engaging look at a man whose life's work encapsulates modern financial theory. Order your copy today.
Customer Reviews:
A Loner who drove Financial Change.......2007-07-15
Revolutions spring from unlikely sources.
Fischer Black was an unlikely revolutionary. He thought like no one else. While teaching, his colleagues attacked problems with formulas and models. Fischer Black did not. He opted to explore them from as many different angles as he could conceive. Once solved, he generated a formula. Solving problems this way, Black found he avoided formula-dictated thinking ruts.
His teaching style was bizarre. He got bored teaching regurgitated knowledge. In his view regular lectures were a waste of time. He developed an engaging teaching style by asking 50 open-ended questions. Combined with his insistence that students learn the language of finance, this interaction gave air to brilliant minds. Black cherry-picked great ideas. His students loved the vibrant seminars.
Fischer Black became famous for what he cared less about: the Black-Scholes option model. Options were just a passing interest. He cared more about Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) developed by Jack Traynor. He sought to apply it to economics.
He failed to leave a legacy in traditional economics. Fischer Black had degrees in physics and mathematics but no formal training in economics. In academia, he became recognized as forward-thinking in finance, but out of his depth in economics.
Robert Rubin, then the managing partner of Goldman Sachs, said it best when he sold his partners on the idea of hiring the academic Black.
"We will learn from Fischer," he is quoted by the author as saying, "and he will learn from us."
Fischer was egoless. He took rebuttals in stride. Open to change, he was an unapologetic believer in free markets. His unorthodox style sparked a revolution in the business of finance. His innovative thinking drove finance to the forefront of the science of economics.
Perry Mehrling has written a brilliant biography about a brilliant man.
A Guidebook to Thinking Outside of the Proverbial Box..........2006-07-28
Fischer Black's life and somewhat rebellious style of thinking are taken under the lens in Fischer Black and The Revolutionary Idea of Finance. Clearly written for those interested in economics and finance, the author illuminates the personalities, relationships and debates that drove Fischer Black toward his famous contribution to options theory. It interestingly highlights the important role Fischer Black's understanding of Jack Treynor's Capital Asset Pricing Model played in shaping his views of the investment universe and in developing the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model.
Why not 5/5? While the author only indirectly points to Fischer Black's controversial insights and revolutionary attitude as a potential cause, we are left to speculate about the reason why he was not awarded the Nobel Prize. It would have made the story line more interesting to see this unfortunate outcome addressed.
A Masterful Biography.......2006-07-27
Fischer Black was not only a revolutionary thinker, he was an eccentrically original human being. Professor Mehrling's biography is a clear, concise account of the development of modern finance, and also a richly detailed portait of a complex man.
Outstanding scholarship wrapped in a 'John Nash-like' story.......2006-04-25
The author has done a very good job on two fronts. One, he has dissected a complex area of corporate finance and made it readable to someone with a decent grasp of business. Considering the complexity of CAPM, and how far it stretched conventional wisdom, that alone would be good for 4 stars. However, Fischer Black was an extraordinary person, moving between academia and the practice of devising new financial instruments for Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs with an aplomb few could match.
If you enjoyed this book, then I heartily recommend Peter Bernstein's Capital Ideas as well.
Black used as a vehicle for a broader theory.......2006-02-03
This is a study of the recent history of finance economics, disguised as a biography. Not that there's anything wrong with that....
The revolutionary idea that Perry Mehrling has chiefly in mind in the title of this book is the capital asset pricing model (CAPM). Mr. Mehrling argues in a nutshell that for Fischer Black, the options formula that would make him famous and that would win two collaborators a Nobel Prize in economics in 1997 was but one application of this model.
A key theme of the book is that at least two "revolutions" have contended for mastery in the worlds of finance and economics, and that for a time in the 1960s the two revolutions, CAPM on the one hand and the efficient-markets hypothesis (EMH) on the other, appeared to be but two arrows in the same quiver. Only over time did it become clear that a choice might be required. Black opted for sticking with CAPM and reasoning from there, and Mehrlig approves of this choice, contending that Black was ahead of his time and that economics today is still struggling to catch up with some of the other inferences he drew from CAPM, in business cycle theory in particular.
Book Description
The spreadsheet for Valuation 3e is an easy-to-use, interactive tool that allows users to plug values into the valuation model developed in the book. The user inputs a company's historical income statements, balance sheet information, and economic forecast assumptions to produce a functional model in which potential cash flow, economic profits, and other pertinent metrics are determined to estimate the value of a company.
Valuation 3/e is a thorough update and revision of the best-selling Valuation 2/e. Valuation 3/e provides crucial insight into how a company's value can be determined and measured, managed and maximized.
System Requirements:
Pentium II PC or greater
Windows 98 or later
128MB RAM
20MB Hard Disk Space
Excel 97 / 2000 (Alone or part of Office 97 / 2000) w/Report Manager & Analysis ToolPak installed and enabled.
(
Note: Formulas & Computations are not guaranteed in later versions of Excel)
Video Display: 800 x 600 recommended
Customer Reviews:
Good intro but that is it.......2007-08-03
This is a good intro to give the basics of valuation for "old economy" businesses. It determines the valuation of companies based almost exclusively on their cash flow over the previous few years to the analysis. Unfortunately it ignores too many issues that play an extremely important role in valuation. For example, the quality, background, knowledge of management, the products the company manufactures, the markets for these products, macroeconomic conditions, intellectual property, market position (i.e., oligopolistic? Is entry/exit difficult in the industry?). Not one of these issues is even touched upon!!! The authors seem to be implying that these issues are irrelevant!! Only the cash flow over the previous few years applied forward (i.e., discounted for present value) matters according to the book!!! Perhaps this type of mentality explains why the overwhelming majority of mergers and acquistions fail!!!!
Nothing spectacular.......2006-04-03
Unfortunately, for all the name brand that this book conveys, I think the cover seems to be the most intriguing part. There are much better ways for book peddling and the fact that a firm such as McKinsey allowed their name on the title of a book for the sake of a few sales, boggles this readers mind. The subject matter seems to be along the lines of the bull session with all bull and no session. No actual quantitative analysis is used throughout the book, and if anything more than an encyclopedic definition is learned from this book, I would be astounded. Save some money and go search online for some basic books on beginning valuation. By the way, those giving 5 stars either can't read English very well or are shills for McKinsey.
Waste of Time.......2005-04-12
Any book by Damodaran is far better for business managers and portfolio managers.
For portfolio managers, estimating the cash-flows is a small part of the valuation process, the easiest. As the financial field and practice is becoming more and more quantitative, the cutting edge of asset pricing is to estimate time-varying risk premiums. Actually, almost 90% of variation in stock prices come from risk shifts, not from news on company cash-flows.
If you are interested in asset pricing i would suggest a mix of damodaran (20%) and "Asset Pricing" by John Cochrane (80%).
Good but bad Excel support.......2004-01-29
I liked this book. In Russia it is one of the most popular books on valuatuion. But when I can get the perfect excel support for Investment Valuation by Aswath Damodaran or good web support for Valuation Methods and Shareholder Value Creation by Pablo Fernandez, I ask the authors, why don't they put supporting material in disk? I think that the price of their sowtware ($94.50) is too high compairing with the book ($56 with discount), because there is no supporting materials - only 1 spreadsheet (from my point of view does not conform to McKinsey, as the leader of consulting business). I hope, for the 4-th edition we will have a good excel support.
User-unfriendliness at its best.......2003-01-11
Hmm I wonder if those giving this book five stars actually work for McKinsey. As a practioner, I don't know anyone in the industry who has actually read this book. It looks impressive on the bookshelf, but the content is anything but impressive. A lot of topics are covered, but each one only superficially and the writing is extremely dry and boring. I actually found reading this volume *painful*, and I'm supposed to like this stuff since I do it for a living! My advice for any potential buyer is read a few chapters first before you shell out for it.
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