Getting Started in Fundamental Analysis
Chapter One
Financial Statements
and What They Reveal
The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our
civilization.
-George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara, 1905
You are faced with a daunting task whenever you attempt to tackle
a large body of information and digest it all at once. Advice to the
overwhelmed: Begin at the beginning, proceed through to the
end, and then stop. This explains why books are organized in chapters.
An example of a very big body of information is fundamental analysis because
it is broad, complex, and encompasses many different principles.
This chapter "begins at the beginning" by looking at the best-known
type of fundamental analysis, the financial statements.
For many analysts, the fundamentals are limited to a study of just
the numbers. But if you confine your study and comparisons to the financial
statements, then the study itself is flawed. Using financial statements
as a starting point in a wider program ... read full excerpt from Getting Started in Fundamental Analysis ebook
