Reviews (38)

An excelent, easy to read book, to understand the Accounting Basics
I have a degree in Geography and started recently an MBA. I searched for a book that could help me, by my self, this summer, to understand the basics of Accounting before classes.
A must read for young and old alike!
I cannot say enough good things about this book!
Best Accounting Book Ever
This book is excellent. Finally, a book that explains serious accounting in a fun and easy way. I had been searching high and low for a book like this. For years there only have been books that I feel intimidate many people from learning accounting. Thanks to "The Accounting Game", we now know that anyone can learn accounting. I read this book before starting business school and when I started class, I was answering questions that no one knew the answer to thanks to this book. I ended up getting an A in the class.
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Subjects:  1. Accounting    2. Accounting (Specific Aspects)    3. Accounting - General    4. Business & Economics    5. Business / Economics / Finance    6. Business/Economics   

Reviews (12)

The Alchemy of Finance
Was recommended to my by an international banker friend. A bit of a tough read , esp til you understabd what is "reflexivity".A well-written book that any one with a few dollars should read.

Great ideas, put them in practice, made...zero money!
Not Soros fault of course.More down to my trading.Great read though and some nice ideas about how market sentiment works or should work.Another Besife Tonwe recommendation to our book club.

A diatribe from a Billionaire
I first read this book in 1994 and remembered it being unuseful and his kitchen-talk economics being superficial.So, 11 yrs later I picked it up again believing that it was my own lack of understanding and maturity that made me under-appreciate Soros.But, I was wrong.
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Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Finance    6. Financial Markets    7. Investments    8. Investments & Securities - General    9. Business & Economics / Investments & Securities   

Reviews (3)

Best Practical Risk Management Book Ever!
Allen's book is absolutely phenomenal. Most of the risk management books out there are too technical to be of any practical use. Allen truly focuses on the practice of risk management and gives us insights on how to be a truly good risk manager. Traders could benefit from his insights as well. I particularly liked his breakdown of linear vs. non-linear risks, and liquid vs. non-liquid positions. In terms of the practical risk management of options (vanilla and exotics) I haven't seen anything this clear and this comprehensive. The accompanying CD is an absolute blessing in order to fully understand the concepts like price vol matrices, etc. This should be a required additional reading for all students in financial mathematics/MBA programs around the world! Well Done Mr. Allen!!

Smart, Savvy, Practical
Allen delivers the most insightful look at market risk management for dealers since the Group of 30 Report. While other books are taking on an increasingly bureaucratic tone when it comes to risk management, Allen is refreshingly proactive. I really like the treatment of valuation reserves. His discussion of managing spot, forward and options risks bridges the gap between what a trader is thinking and what a risk manager should be thinking. This isn't a book for the sort of risk manager who hasn't been on the trading floor in a few months. It is a tactical book for the pro who works shoulder to shoulder with quants, traders and salespeople. Note that the book is qualitative. For the quantitative side of all this, see Holton's landmark "Value-at-Risk".

An Excellent book on risk management
This is a must buy book for both kinds of people: students or people in academia and practitioners who want to understand different type of risk they face at a macro or micro level. The reasons I like this book on risk management better than thousand others already out there are following. I like to describe this book as having two sections, both the sections are very important and people can focus on either depending on what they are looking for.The first part of the book provides a very good understanding of the risks faced by managers, for example risk managers, head of a trading portolfio or a desk or even CEOs. Very often these people face risk which are hard to quantify or even understand and are not often talked about. The author draws from personal experience and provides interesting case studies,. which makes this part of the book a pleasure to read. I learnt about model risk, reputation risk and other such risks which typically a junior person on a trading desk is not exposed to. So this understanding is very valuable in order to communicate with your boss or to get more insights about risks that management may care about. Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Corporate Finance    6. Finance    7. Financial Economics (General)    8. Financial risk management    9. Risk management    10. Budgeting & financial management    11. Business & Economics / Finance    12. Risk assessment & analysis for business   

Reviews (14)

Unnecessarily Complex
Author devotes 2 pages to mathematically prove & philosophically justify that a manager should chose the highest NPV project before chosing the next highest NPV project.Such logic continues ad infinitum throughout the 800+ page text.Time for 3rd Ed.

A finance textbook full of errors and holes
I am a postgraduate student in finance and this book is on my reading list for corporate finance. I must say that I am not very pleased with this book. First, it seems to skip around from chapter to chapter with no real logical organizational structure. Second, it is full of typos and mistakes -- some that are quite dangerous for a proper understanding of the material. Third, it does not develop fully the statistically techniques in Chapter 4 that it builds on in later chapters. This is a major problem in my opinion. What saves this book from the lowest rating is that it does discuss empirical studies and journal articles, and it does not do an entirely awful job about the more qualitative subjects like adverse selection and capitalization policy.
A Wonderful Approach to Corporate Finance
After reading the reviews for this book, I feel obligated to write a review, although I will admit a bias since one of the co-authors was a favorite professor of mine in college.
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Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Corporate Finance    6. Corporations    7. Economics - General    8. Finance    9. Financial Markets    10. Financial institutions    11. Strategic planning    12. United States    13. Business & Economics / Corporate Finance    14. Investment & securities   

Reviews (111)

waste of paper
This book is a total waste of time.Stick to books by Pring, Murphy and Elder...
Why and how to design a successful trading system
Thousands, if not millions, of people waste huge amounts of money and time every year searching for some get-rich-quick Holy Grail of trading.Tharp's somewhat misleadingly titled Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom is definitely not a get-rich-quick technique.Nor is it even a guide to analyzing the markets; there are no fundamental analysis approaches, no technical chart patterns, no quantitative formulae.Instead, Tharp offers something totally different and far more useful: he systematically describes why you should develop your own trading system and how you should go about building and testing it.
Read It
There is a lot to learn from this book.If you can exersice the things taught in this book you can make a ton of money in the market.RE read it several times.Every time you read it you learn something new and better understand the conceps being taught. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Consumer Finance    4. Finance, Personal    5. Investment Finance    6. Investments & Securities - General    7. Personal Finance    8. Personal Finance - Investing    9. Stocks    10. Budgeting & financial management    11. Business & Economics / Personal Finance / Investing    12. Investment & securities   

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Auditing    3. Business & Economics    4. Business / Economics / Finance    5. Business/Economics    6. Forensic Science    7. Forensic accounting    8. Fraud investigation    9. Business & Economics / Accounting / General    10. Criminal investigation & detection    11. Management accounting   

Editorial Review

With the stock market breaking records almost daily, leaving longtime market analysts shaking their heads and revising their forecasts, a study of the concept of risk seems quite timely. Peter Bernstein has written a comprehensive history of man's efforts to understand risk and probability, beginning with early gamblers in ancient Greece, continuing through the 17th-century French mathematicians Pascal and Fermat and up to modern chaos theory. Along the way he demonstrates that understanding risk underlies everything from game theory to bridge-building to winemaking. ... Read more

Reviews (132)

Ingenious ways to measure probability
"Against the Gods; The remarkable story of risk," is a world-class history of ingenious ways to measure probability.Author Peter L. Bernstein approaches the subject of risk/uncertainty with patience and unfolds a stirring tale of how civilization dicovered ways to improve the understanding of probability.
Enjoyable
It has interesting parts. Good for those looking for a recreational reading rather than a good manual for beginners. On this count, I recommend Barboianu's "Understanding and Calculating the Odds".

A good non-mathematical introduction to economic risk
For people who are interested in the economic side of risk (mainly stock), rather than the probabilities and risks of every day things.
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Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Decision making    6. Decision-Making (Psychological Aspects)    7. Finance    8. Insurance - Risk Assessment & Management    9. Probabilities    10. Probability & Statistics - General    11. Risk management    12. Budgeting & financial management    13. Business & Economics / Management    14. Management decision making    15. Probability & statistics    16. Psychology   

Reviews (4)

Great textbook
I'm usually very critical of textbooks, but this one reads extremely well. It is clearly organized and progresses in a logical manner. The subject material is inherently difficult, but the authors do an excellent job explaining both the common-sense and mathematical basis for each topic. I have no formal background in finance or accounting but I'm doing well in a 300-level course with just this book to thank. Anyone who wants to educate themselves about stock/bond values, interpreting balance sheets, etc, would benefit greatly from this book.

Great Book for a hard course
The class is hard no matter what school you attend.The book is easy reading and has many great exercise for you to practice to help you understand the text.The exercises had help me tremendously.

Financial Management : Principles and Applications (10th Edition)
The Book was not plastic covered and plus there was no cd included in thebook ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business enterprises    5. Business/Economics    6. Corporate Finance    7. Corporations    8. Finance    9. Management - General    10. Business & Economics / Corporate Finance    11. Management & management techniques   

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business/Economics    4. Financial accounting   

Reviews (2)

Comprehensive and updated
This book has been thought as a course manual, but it reads like a divulgative work on modern international and multinational banking. The numerous examples come from some of the big issues faced by different banks in different countries, and the open-minded approach of the author gives you the chance to easily grasp the big picture.

Great introduction into international banking
This book is an overview of the international banking industry. Instead of focusing on banking in a particular country, the author discussed general types of banks, banking services, banking regulations in different countries, ways how the regulations influence banking in countries with various types of economy and financial systems (USA, Britain, EU countries, Japan, emerging economies of Russia, China, Latin America and Islamic countries). The large part of the book is devoted to analysis of bank failures and survival of banks in financial crises. The book contains enormous amount of compressed material and real-world examples.
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Subjects:  1. Banks & Banking    2. Banks and banking    3. Business & Economics    4. Business / Economics / Finance    5. Business/Economics    6. Finance    7. Banking    8. Business & Economics / Banks & Banking   

Reviews (1)

Good overview of how systems work
I was looking for a book that described in depth how the various cycles (e.g., Revenue Cycle) worked in conjunction with the various tables.Does an outstanding job with in-depth details where you not only learn the steps, but how the system is updated at each stage. Good material on controls, especially application controls that need to be built into the system.Normally I never look at case studies and assignments, but in this book, they were useful. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting    2. Accounting - General    3. Computer Bks - General Information    4. Computer Books: General    5. Computers    6. Computers - General Information    7. Data processing    8. Information Management    9. Information storage and retrieval systems    10. Management Information Systems    11. Computers / Financial Applications / General   

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Accounting    6. Business & Economics / Accounting / General   

Reviews (1)

An excellent resource.
This is a well written text on the subject with the subject matter well presented. Another feature is the CD. Excellent spreadsheets. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Corporate Finance    5. Engineering - Industrial    6. Engineering economy    7. Economics    8. Engineering & Technology | Industrial Engineering    9. Engineering: general    10. Technology / Engineering / Industrial   

Reviews (7)

Filled With Useless Information
If you want to wade through useless babble to get to the actual cost accounting, go at it. However, you'll probably buy this book anyway if you have an unscrupulous accounting professor who received a gift basket from the publisher.
FOR THE PRICE, THIS BOOK SHOULD BE BETTER
This book should have been written better when you consider its expensive price tag. However, the review excercise at the end of the chapter is extremely helpful. I would recommend the book if serious improvements are made. Overall, it is not that bad.

Want to Cheat Someone
I made a mistake and chose the book they listed in the Amazon.com. When the book arrived, I saw that what they have listed was only a Study Guide from a really old edition. I must say that they have said this on the listing. That was my mistake. But I wrote them back that I do not want this book, and want to return it. But they do not accept the return and refund of money. They do know that it is hard to find someone again doing this mistake. I looked at the book. This is $ 10 worth, not more. And impossible to sell again. I am a student. I do not have so much money to afford the required book. So I got really frustrated and faced losts of problems in the following weeks and spent a lot of time and energy to get the right book. It is a really sad story and an experience for me. I hope the seller is right know enjoying my $ 139.71. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Activity-based costing    3. Business & Economics    4. Business / Economics / Finance    5. Business/Economics    6. Cost accounting    7. Managerial accounting    8. Budgeting & financial management    9. Business & Economics / Accounting / General   

Subjects:  1. Advertising & Promotion    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business Communication - Meetings & Presentations    5. Business/Economics    6. Business & Economics / Advertising & Promotion    7. Sales & marketing   

Reviews (14)

Excellent Book for non-specialists!!!
I think this book is very effective! Once you by pass all the gramatical errors, then you will be in driver's seat on this subject. A good book worth reading by anyone who is or plans to be a small business owner. I take my hat off to the author for making such a complicated subject easy to follow within the covers of such a small book.

Excellet Resource
Although the price is steep for such a small book, and the book is full of grammatical errors, the information is invaluable.The book seems to have not been proof read prior to publishing.However, the author knows his subject and I have already used some of the information in the book on two business deals.One passage especially, on valuing (discounting) a minority partnership interest saved my organization several million dollars.They had planned to pay "pro rata" to buy a minority stake in a company.I was able to demonstrate why that was not a good idea because of the way the partnership was structured.They are now successfully negotiating at a discounted price.I highly recommend this book and agree with another review which states that you can find lengthier books on business valuation, but this one cuts right to the main points. In fact I bought three other books on valuation, one is over 1,000 pages but "Unlocking the Value of Your Business" is the book I find myself referencing everyday.Maybe that is why I could not find a used copy at a cheaper price, everyone holds on to their book!

great book - reliable info
I have several books on this subject, and this one is probably my favorite.I've done many, many valuations and found that the more esoteric books on the topic don't seem to produce better results than the "tried and true" methods in this manual.There are also quite a few books, aimed at the layman, that oversimplify the subject - but there's no danger of that here.You will find this book both very accessible and technically complete.Highly, highly recommended. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting    2. Business & Economics    3. Business & Economics / Accounting / General    4. Business & Economics / Consolidation & Merger    5. Business & Economics / Small Business    6. Mergers   

Subjects:  1. Accounting (Specific Aspects)    2. Accounting - General    3. Business & Economics    4. Business / Economics / Finance    5. Business/Economics    6. Human Resources & Personnel Management    7. Labor    8. Wages    9. Accounting    10. Business & Economics / Human Resources & Personnel Management   

Reviews (5)

A good book for the designer of energy risk managment tools
If you develop computer code in this field it could be a help, but if you are more interested in knowing more about the ways to avoid risk in the energy business I would recommend another book. There are also not enough practical examples to give a good understanding of the principles.
Not for the average industry professional
The authors have written a very detailed, well structured text on the different models and developments in the power and fuel markets.It's a very complex, mathematical analysis of the different techniques being used, and the text may lose a number of readers in the overly rigorous formulations.For those involved in risk management, market modeling, or asset management, the book would be a good secondary or tertiary read after you've established a sound understanding of stochastic models and current hedging and pricing techniques in the marketplace.For the layman in the industry, the book will be far too heavy and not worth the read.

Good overview
The management of risk in the context of energy or weather is quite different than in other contexts, due to the peculiarities of the data that occurs in energy prices. The high volatility of energy prices can range, as the authors of this book point out, between 50-100% for gas, to 100-500% for electricity. No doubt this kind of volatility, and other properties such as correlations and mean reversion, entails that some different mathematical strategies for modeling energy derivatives be devised. The authors give a good tour of some of these strategies, and anyone interested in energy derivatives will gain a lot of insight into their modeling when reading this book. Due to space constraints, only chapters 5 and 7, which this reviewer considered the most important of the book, will be reviewed here. Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Energy industries    6. Entrepreneurship    7. Finance    8. Industries - Energy Industries    9. Industries And Trades (Economic Aspects)    10. Investment Analysis    11. Portfolio management    12. Risk    13. United States    14. Business & Economics / Finance    15. Commodities   

Reviews (5)

good combination of math and finance
As indicated on the back of the book, the authors are aiming at audience who have some knowledge in both math and finance but may be weak in one and strong in another. Either way, this is a good book to read on credit risk.

Clear and comprehensive
This book clearly articulates basic concepts of credit risk modeling. At the same time it is mathematically rigorous. This book enables non mathematician with some (basic) knowledge in probability statistic to better understand and develop his risk management skills.

A good read!
Easy to understand with not a tremendous amount of complicated math to dicipher.Just what the doctor ordered. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Credit    4. General    5. Management    6. Marketing - General    7. Mathematical models    8. Mathematics    9. Probability & Statistics - General    10. Risk management    11. Science/Mathematics    12. Applied mathematics    13. Credit & credit institutions    14. Mathematics / General   

Reviews (4)

A mostly complete bridge across a chasm
In future editions it'd be helpful to have a stronger discussion of imperfect markets. Hubbard's neo-classicism is what made G W Bush pick him to lead the Council of Economic Advisors. But to get a more full picture of finance (especially on the international scale) one should read this side by side with Stiglitz's "Globalization and its Discontents".
nah don't buy it
Please do yourself another favour this year by not buying this textbook. The writter had a difficult time explain the meaning of money and frequency confuse what he was wrtiing in chappeters.

Well written survey
Having taken only a few basic econ courses in college I waslooking for a book that would explain the workings of the fed in detail. My main interest is in trading. I found this book to be perfect.It was neither too simplenor too complex.Everything was cogently written and accessible to alayman.I found answers to all my questions and it's organized in a mannerthat chapters can be read independently of one another.It will serve asan excellent reference manual. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Banks & Banking    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Finance    6. Business & Economics / Banks & Banking    7. Economics