Books like Quality of Earnings by Thornton L. O'glove

Thirty-five million individual investors jumped into the stock market for the first time during the late 1990s without asking questions about the stocks they were buying. When the bubble burst and the large number of accounting scandals began to grow, most investors didn't know where to turn or whom to trust. Now it has become more important than ever for investors to take matters into their own hands. Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company's True Value lets individual investors in on the secrets that seasoned professional investors use when they evaluate a potential investment. Buried deep in a company's quarterly (10-Q) and annual (10-K) reports are the real clues to a company's financial health: the footnotes. At many large companies, these footnotes can run for more than 30 pages and for some corporations have doubled in the past five years, making them simply too important for investors to ignore. Financial Fine Print spells out exactly what investors need to look for within the footnotes of a company's reports in order to make better, more informed decisions. By using numerous examples of actual footnotes that have appeared in SEC documents, the book teaches investors in easy-to-understand language ways to spot -- and avoid -- future Enrons and Worldcoms (and Tycos and Adelphias and HealthSouths). For any investor who has spent the past three years watching their investments shrink and has begun to think about getting back into the market, this book provides the critical tools that investors need to know to avoid getting burned once again.

"As recent corporate scandals prove, corrupt companies can maintain a facade of financial success through manipulation and fraud almost to the day they file for bankruptcy. Fortunately, tools exist to detect aggressive earnings management.". "This timely book reviews the current environment, explains the tools that can be used to detect a manipulative financial environment, and introduces techniques for recasting financial information to get a truer economic picture. Brief cases reflecting a variety of companies provide a feel for evaluating public data and how earnings management potential can be analyzed. In addition, an appendix features a complete earnings management detection checklist that can be used to conduct a thorough analysis of any corporation."--BOOK JACKET.

"As recent corporate scandals prove, corrupt companies can maintain a facade of financial success through manipulation and fraud almost to the day they file for bankruptcy. Fortunately, tools exist to detect aggressive earnings management.". "This timely book reviews the current environment, explains the tools that can be used to detect a manipulative financial environment, and introduces techniques for recasting financial information to get a truer economic picture. Brief cases reflecting a variety of companies provide a feel for evaluating public data and how earnings management potential can be analyzed. In addition, an appendix features a complete earnings management detection checklist that can be used to conduct a thorough analysis of any corporation."--BOOK JACKET.