WARREN BUFFETT AND THE INTERPRETATION OF FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Narrator Karen White keeps a professorial distance from this fascinating lesson on how the richest man in the world predicts long-range company profitability. She measures her enthusiasm as she unfolds one technical concept after another but is consistent in her tone of admiration for Buffet’s famously down-to-earth outlook. The authors are Buffett insiders—one a financial expert and ex-Buffett daughter-in-law, the other a money manager and family friend. They write concisely about the financial characteristics (such as minimal capital expenditures and low debt-to-shareholder-equity ratio) that Buffett wants companies to have. They know how to explain accounting metrics with accessible language and connect Buffett's benchmarks to practical aspects of market success that everyone will understand. This is a financial asset for all independent investors. T.W. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2009]