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
"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.
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.
Book Description
This is the book for anyone who wants to know what really lies behind the scandals and disasters of global business that have marred the first few years of the twenty-first century. Detailed studies of eight of the most famous recent failures identify six main causes: poor strategic decisions; over-expansion and ill-judged acquisitions; dominant CEOs; greed, hubris and a desire for power; failure of internal controls, and ineffective boards. The authors also set out what the prudent investor, board member or manager should be alert to but often is not.
Amazon.com
Imagine the American republic of the 19th century: at the beginning, a sparsely populated agrarian nation where the president, Thomas Jefferson, fords rivers on horseback to make it to his own inauguration; at the end of the century, it's a land of densely populated cities, teeming with factories and linked by a network of railroads. This extraordinary transition--and all the economic upheavals that went along with it--is described in the opening chapters of Money, Greed, and Risk, and provides the historical context for a broader look at how booms and busts happen. Charles Morris tells the story of American financial markets by looking at its larger-than-life characters: Nicholas Biddle (the first U.S. central banker), Jay Gould (a much-hated financial genius who patched together a network of rail lines), steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, oil baron John D. Rockefeller, and, of course, J.P. Morgan, who made America the world's banker. By the time these men had all passed from public life, the U.S. economy had changed from a primitive system that could be bent to the will of a single financier, such as Morgan, to a sophisticated, highly regulated, world-dominating conglomeration of massive corporations.
Then along came Michael Milken and things changed again. Morris makes this chronicle entertaining and enlightening, although the reader is expected to have some previous knowledge of finance and history. He finds connections where we don't expect them--for example, linking the leverage tactics of junk-bond king Milken to early-19th-century "wildcat" bankers. He also makes it easy to understand the accordion-like expansions and contractions in the world's developing economies. Once you've read this book, you'll feel as if you've seen everything before. --Lou Schuler
Book Description
The world seems awash in financial crises. The Asian crisis of 1998, the near-demise of Long Term Capital Management, and the black hole of Russia are just a few of the most recent. Are they the result of greedy speculators, crony capitalism, or the warp speed of the forces of globalization? Can we send in the repairman and get things fixed through the legal and regulatory systems?
Or are other causes at work that may be beyond our control?
Money, Greed, and Risk is that rare book which, through adroit analysis of both historical and contemporary events and their leading players, lends new insights into the causes of financial turmoil. Charles Morris:
Explores the eternal cycle of financial crises: from brilliant innovation to gross excess and inevitable crash, before investors and institutions catch up.
Explains why the American financial system grew from a capital-starved backwater in the nineteenth century to one that plays the leading role in the world today.
Examines the technological, economic, demographic, and industrial experiences that caused the financial engine to kick into such high gear in the 1980s and 1990s.
Shows how the boom-and-bust cycle in early American history helps illuminate recent events in South Asia and Russia. In the process we become more realistic about what to expect during the nascent stages of capitalism and market development everywhere.
Explains that globalization is nothing new. The investment system in the nineteenth century was perhaps even more global than the world today.
Looks at contemporary financial geniuses--Michael Milken is a good example--and shows that they didn't invent any financial instruments that nineteenth-century counterparts like Jay Gould hadn't already thought of.
There are a handful of books about finance and the financial markets that are substantive enough to provide intellectual grist for sophisticated investors while also providing intriguing explanations of contemporary events that will be of interest to a general audience. Money, Greed, and Risk is one of them.
Finance is the plumbing that makes capitalism run. And, like a good plumbing system, finance is invisible when working well. But just as a broken pipe can be a disaster, so too when the financial system breaks and crises and crashes occur. We look to understand the causes and Charles Morris provides unusual insights that bring our understanding to a new level.
Customer Reviews:
The "greatest hits" of financial choas.......2004-06-21
Mr. Morris book provides a very readable survey of financial crisis which occured during the last 150 years. The real value of this book lies Mr. Morris's commentary which draws into focus the fundamental similarities between seemingly unrelated financial disasters.
It is banal to observe that the future is likely to include some as-yet unforseen financial meltdown. Armegeddon-peddlers, chicken-littlers, and perpetual bears have been saying this for centuries. It it brilliance on the part of Mr. Morris to explain exactly why this is the case.
Mr. Morris debunks the garden varieties of conventional wisdom, which variously held that financial crisis are "caused" by currency speculators, Michael Milken, junk bonds traders, Jews, computer trading programs, etc. Mr. Morris demonstrates that all crisis run a predictable course: economic innovation and growth, corresponding financial innovation provide capital to fuel the growth, over-shoot of valuations of the new financial mechanisms by financial markets chasing high yields, and the invevitable crash and ensuing chaos.
The USA Savings and Loan debacle, Asian currency crisis, British investments in post Civil War USA railroads are all shown as variations on this theme.
I did not award 5 stars because the book often delves into complex financial mechanisms which could have been explained in a more layman friendly manner.
Rough going for the amateur economist.......2001-03-13
I found this to be a very well written and interesting book and learned a great deal, but much of the book was over my head. An example: "...They [Barings] were the major underwriters of the bonds for the Louisiana Purchase, and in the 1820s rapidly expanded their underwritings of American state bonds to finance internal improvements. But the bookkeeping on their securities was still following trade-based forms. Issuers of bonds were authorized to draw bills of exchange on the Barings, which they would cover by forwarding the new securities to London, just as merchants would cover a trade bill by forwarding the documents on a cotton cargo." A substantial portion of the book is similarly written, but balanced by a healthy dose of colorful characters and sharp opinions by Morris.
Nothing new..........2000-06-14
Charles Morris' book, despite its historical depth, falls short of providing a new insight on financial crises. This book is great for starters but cannot compete against Chancellor's "devil take the hindmost" or Kindleberger's "manias, panics and crashes". Clearly a dominated asset...
The Wisdom of Historical Perspective on Today's Market.......2000-05-22
An excellent book for the serious investor who wants historical perspective on the market changes happening today. It's added gift is that it will imbue its reader with the knowledge to preserve wealth and actually profit whenever the next financial crisis comes, since the author proves that there is not much new in modern crises, and their prescriptions, that couldn't be found in crises a hundred years ago. The author serves the reader well by constantly pointing out the irresponsibility of the nation's bankers and financial institutions especially when motivated by greed- "the opportunity to fleece the greedy proved irresistible," The author possesses the rare skill of being able to see the wood for the trees and of relating that to his readers. The foreword is right on.
A View of Morality & Changing Financial Markets.......2000-05-20
I found myself continuously amazed at the insights that Morris shows in his analysis of US financial markets and in their basic similarity over 150 years -- similar but more complex. I have been a student of financial markets for over forty years and I confess that I found insights being expanded consistently. As I read I kept thinking "What a great critical summary!"
Average customer rating:
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Book Description
This book analyzes contemporary financial accounting. In doing so it provides a user-oriented guide to the salient issues which affect all aspects of financial accounting.
Written by a former Secretary General of the International Accounting Standards Committee, practitioners and accounting scholars alike will find this volume to be an extremely good addition to their libraries.
Book Description
With a new Afterword by the author and a new Foreword by Mark Cuban
In this commanding big-picture analysis of what went wrong in corporate America, Alex Berenson, a top financial investigative reporter for The New York Times, examines the common thread connecting Enron, Worldcom, Halliburton, Computer Associates, Tyco, and other recent corporate scandals: the cult of the number.
Every three months, 14,000 publicly traded companies report sales and profits to their shareholders. Nothing is more important in these quarterly announcements than earnings per share, the lodestar that investors—and these days, that’s most of us—use to judge the health of corporate America. earnings per share is the number for which all other numbers are sacrificed. It is the distilled truth of a company’s health.
Too bad it’s often a lie.
Alex Berenson’s
The Number provides a comprehensiv, brutally factual overview of how Wall Street and corporate America lost their way during the great bull market that began in 1982. With wit and a broad historical perspective, Berenson puts recent corporate accounting (or accountability) disasters in their proper context. He explains how the wheels came off the wagon, giving readers the information and analysis they need to understand Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Halliburton, and the rest of the corporate calamities of our times.
Customer Reviews:
A must read for any who would invest in financial markets.......2005-03-02
Alex Berenson has done the public a huge public service with this book. He clearly and logically describes serious problems with the US Stock markets, based on corporate avarice, greed and cowardly, dishonest politicians. His sections on the creation then the gutting of the SEC are perceptive and insightful. His overview of the decline of corporate accounting standards, led by the big US accounting firms, including, of course Arthur Anderson give a clear picture of the problems and what needs to be done.
We need transparent and honest markets. We don't have them.
A great book for experienced investors and for novices.
The Number.......2004-11-08
A book about accounting written by a nonaccountant. A waste of your time and money. My copy went into the trash.
Very good.......2004-11-04
Concise and crisply written. Shows in a way how the 1990s were an inevitable outcome of prior history
What Might Those Quarterly Earnings Mean?.......2004-06-25
New York Times business reporter Alex Berenson has written a book that every investor should read. "The Number" traces the history of Wall Street trends, bubbles, busts, and the accounting fashions that accompanied them from the 1920s to the present day. He explains how the cult of The Number was born, making quarterly earnings reports the last word on any company's health, and how this facilitated the chicanery at Enron, Tyco, and the scandalously large paydays for incompetent corporate executives that have made headlines across the nation in recent years. "The Number"'s primary focus is actually on the evolution of accounting practices over the past 80 years. Berenson asserts that a disintegration of standards and an increase in conflicts of interest in the accounting profession prevent potential and current shareholders from understanding any company's health or its stock's true value. In other words, accounting slight of hand is such that it would take a detective to figure out if a company is making money or losing it. In explaining how and why, "The Number" gives us a fascinating, very readable history of the numbers and the people behind the trends since this nation first went crazy over the stock market in the 1920s. Mr. Berenson definitely has a viewpoint. He is in favor of stricter regulation for the accounting industry, perhaps more than is necessary or practical. But he makes some good points. And "The Number"'s chronicle of how things are on Wall Street and how they got that way is invaluable for any investor. Alex Berenson's writing is interesting, easy for anyone to understand, and his insights are essential to understanding what quarterly earnings reports do and don't mean, whether they be for big corporations that are the backbone of our economy, or little ones that may make or break your nest egg.
Equity investors out to know this material (and then some).......2004-03-23
Mr. Berenson takes a very interesting approach to explaining the rise of the 90s bubble economy. The book opens with a wonderfully apt quote from Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." The drive for Earnings Per Share (EPS) by analysts and investors guided by them, according to the author, leads them astray because the number is inherently imprecise. Earnings are stated by the company as an exact figure and EPS is simply that number divided by the number of outstanding shares of common stock.
However, earnings depend a great deal on the methods of accounting used by the firm. In the 90s we saw a rise in very aggressive accounting. Any system of rules that is intended to be applied generally over a wide range differing conditions is going to have gaps and unintended effects that distort the intention of the rules. General rules rely upon the good will and integrity of the participants to keep the intention or spirit of the rules in tact in order for the rules to have any real meaning in application. In sports we also have referees to keep the game fair, but both teams still have to intend to follow the rules completely. No game could be played if the participants tried to push every rule to an extreme interpretation. Aggressive accounting uses extreme interpretations of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to present as favorable earnings number as possible. This results in a higher (and therefore more pleasing) EPS number.
Analysts started giving forecasts of coming EPS reports for firms and those that met or slightly exceeded that forecast were rewarded with higher share prices because investors competed for their shares. Those that missed the forecast by even a penny per share were punished as investors abandoned their stock. Mr. Berenson demonstrates that many companies had reserves and other accounting tricks to make sure their EPS forecasts were always met. However, as companies grow this becomes harder to do. And for companies such as Tyco, Enron, Adelphia, and even the mighty General Electric, it finally became impossible. The most aggressive companies had presented such a distorted picture of reality that they collapsed. Those that were still within shouting distance of reality remained solvent, but still suffered a significant depression in their stock price.
Since the EPS is inherently inexact it seems strange that the markets would react so strongly to that single measure. Mr. Berenson calls the number a lie. I think he does that for rhetorical effect and one time he does admit it is a white lie. I think he has a very strong point for those companies using aggressive interpretations of GAAP. The author also provides a history of the SEC and calls for stronger enforcement powers and the staff to provide that enforcement. While there is certainly a good case to have an effective SEC with sufficient resources (there will be a debate on what this level is), Mr. Berenson has more faith in regulation than I do.
Even if I fully concede his point and support an SEC of enormous size, it still could not provide the necessary enforcement to keep companies in line if the market keeps rewarding companies for fudging the numbers. The market will provide what people want to buy even if they want to buy lies. I agree with Mr. Berenson that INVESTORS need to become better educated and make more demands of the management of the companies in which they invest. Investors, by NOT investing in companies who use very aggressive accounting, could affect the way finances are reported than any regulatory body.
Not every company can be a growth company. Heck, even Microsoft isn't a Microsoft anymore. Investors have to demand that financial statements actually present a real picture of the financial state of the firm rather then providing a manufactured dream of ever expanding growth. One of the strengths of this book is the compelling evidence Mr. Berenson provides of management spinning these euphoric visions just long enough to cash out and then let the bad news (read reality) come to light on someone else's watch.
This is a fine book. I think that anyone who has investments in public companies ought to read it and better educated themselves on the realities of the equities marketplace. I think Mr. Berenson's recommendations for public policy are measured and good for debate even if I don't personally agree with all of them. There are a few minor quibbles I have with some of his explanations, but they don't affect my recommendation.
The book has a couple of short appendices to help the reader understand the accounting issues involved. There are helpful notes for sources and an index.
Book Description
This study focuses on the role of institutions and organizations in the development of corporate finance from the Italian merchant banks of the Renaissance through the formation of conglomerates and leveraged-buy-out partnerships in contemporary Wall Street. It also puts forth a compelling argument for the closer integration of historical and quantitative research methodologies in financial theory. The epilogue contains an original algorithm that explains the relationship between the short-term, firm-specific factors and longer-term environmental elements that have shaped the historical development of finance.
Customer Reviews:
Dry as Dust.......2005-09-22
The history of corporate finance is a fascinating subject, overflowing with interesting people and dramatic events that affect not only finance but the man on the street.
Unfortunately the authors of this book have no interest in breathing life into the story of capitalism. Instead what a reader will get is a dry list of facts. The regulated company evolved into the joint stock company for the following reasons. The East India Company developed the following innovations. Its example paved the way for the next step, and so on. The book has all the feeling of a dull term paper written by a college student who simply summarized the obvious secondary sources. Each step seems to lead naturally, ploddingly to the next, in a march that seems both uninteresting and inevitable.
While the authors have done an impressive job of bringing many important facts over a broad context together in one volume, that's all they've done. And I detected a subtle smugness, like that of a Monday morning quarterback, as the authors pointed out flaws in earlier structures. To me they seemed unaware that the flaws in today's systems will look as obvious to future scholars as those of the past seem now to us.
I also encountered what I considered to be lapses in scholarship (or insight) brought about by the "Ivory Tower" phenomenon of having only a an academic understanding of processes undertaken by others. The coverage of LBOs is an example. It's easy in hindsight to go on about the excesses of leveraged buyout era of the 1980s. Baskin and Miranti cover this fully, detailing many of the problems that arose. But was there any rationale for the LBOs in the first place, or were they simply the instruments of greedy financial conmen?
On p291 the authors begin one paragraph with the following: "One important method applied by LBO organizers to achieve superior performance was to change ownership structures." Having lived through that era, I'm aware of how misleading that statement can be. At the time there were a number of public companies that weren't well managed and had languishing stock prices that not only didn't reflect the firms' potential, but didn't even reflect the value of their current operations. Traditionally this obvious problem (the stock's trading at $35 and it's worth $60) had no easy solution. Until LBOs came along (both friendly and unfriendly), there was little that could be done.
LBO firms were able to convince investors that a company was undervalued, provide a method for quickly realizing this value, and prove that it could be done. Many decry the fact that jobs were sometimes lost in the process; a point worth considering. But this doesn't take away from the fact everyone who owns stocks today has a portfolio that's more fairly and appropriately valued because of the rationalizing force introduced by leveraged buyouts. Valuing these companies wasn't the innovation, any grad student could have done that. It was coming up with a way to prove that these valuations mattered, and that management would be held accountable for them, that was the innovation.
Now when incompetent management is forced out as a result of an LBO, is that a "change in ownership structure?" I guess so. But for me the phrase fails to capture the essence of what is taking place. Is quickly realizing the value in a company whose stock is trading too cheaply "achieving superior performance?" I wouldn't call it that, but I suppose an academic might. The point here is that an intelligent laymen looking to expand his or her knowledge and become interested in a fascinating topic will be poorly served by this type of phraseology.
Not recommended.
Strictly for Academic Libraries.......2004-12-15
This jargon-laden and lifeless book, filled with undefined terms from business law and corporate finance, covers a vast historical landscape, from the Medicis to LBOs (there's even an appendix on finance in the classical world). Unfortunately, Baskin doesn't manage this huge volume of material by picking out key events and themes. Instead, he repeatedly compresses complex institutional and financial developments into a few paragraphs of leaden prose, squeezing in as much material as possible. Time and again I found myself reading and rereading a paragraph and wondering what it meant. Corporate finance students might have better luck than I did, but I doubt that even they would enjoy the book. In fairness to Baskin, the book is refreshingly skeptical about academic finance theories, and it does draw together material otherwise hidden in technical books and journals -- but those aren't good reasons for laymen read it. They would get more out of better-written books by Charles Kindleberger or John Kenneth Galbraith.
Insightful!.......2001-02-24
This thorough, scholarly study balances broad concepts with specific details of the history of finance from the 15th through 20th centuries. Though authors Jonathan Barron Baskin and Paul J. Miranti Jr. assume that the reader has some knowledge of finance and relevant terms, they avoid mathematical models and jargon in favor of plain language. Their book is accessible and valuable to lay readers as well as trained economists, historians, students of finance and anyone coping with an emerging market. The issues they examine remain surprisingly relevant, because - as they soon make clear - the problems that historical markets once confronted are the same issues of risk and information that markets face today, particularly emerging markets. As a historical study, this book presents no particular prescriptions for success or future action. However, we at getAbstract.com recommend its explanation of why some structures succeeded and others failed, because those forces have clear implications today.
Average customer rating:
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A Financial History of Modern U.s. Corporate Scandals: From Enron to Reform
Jerry W. Markham
Manufacturer: M.E. Sharpe
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Binding: Hardcover
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