Title: Smarter Than the Street: Invest and Make Money in Any Market / Edition 1
Author: Gary Kaminsky
ISBN-10: 0071749225
ISBN-13: 9780071749220
This book is intended for two audiences: investors who, as “outside” analysts, are assessing the investment potential of a firm, and managers, who as “inside” analysts, want to assess the impact of specific corporate strategy choices on shareholder value. Therefore, it should fit in well as a supplement to investments or corporate finance courses, at both undergraduate and MBA levels. It might also fit in with some accounting courses as a supplement. It has two significant advantages relative to other books and software on the topic of valuation. First the expository approach of the authors is very user-friendly, with a pedagogy designed to build confidence. They begin with a very simple, but complete example in the first couple of chapters that takes the reader through the valuation of a company. They repeat the analysis for successively more complex examples in chapters 3-4, and in chapters 5-7. This iterative approach emphasizes development of a working knowledge firms’ financial statements and thorough understanding of how managers’ strategic and operating policy choices influence financial outcomes. It allows the reader to absorb “digestible” amounts of material before moving on to the next level of complication. The second pedagogic advantage is the structure of their valuation spreadsheet. They show the reader how to get real world data, and how to cut-and-paste it into their spreadsheet. The spreadsheet simplifies the complex accounting found in most actual companies’ financial statements and condenses it into a simplified set of standardized financial statements. This allows the user to concentrate on the fundamental economic forces that underlie a company’s value. It will provide tools and insights for assessing a company’s value, and it will provide insights into how to measure, manage, and maximize a company’s value.
