BSBAALJR misses the boat on corporate finance
Finance, comes in seventh, after Marketing, Global Competitive Strategy, Operations Management, Leadership, Financial Management, and Financial Analysis, in terms of its importance to BSBAALSR, the incarnation of MBA program quantity and alleged-quality.
BSBAALJR, the incarnation of MBA programs in general regardless of quality, recoils from the hard-headed study of corporate finance, the way he recoils from study of hard-science in general as evinced by his approach to "Financial Analysis". He pays at least twice as much attention to pop-psychology type books such as one about how we managers should learn to enhance the strong points of workers as opposed to eliminating their weaknesses ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743201140/002-6320582-2337641 ), and another about how we should learn to make snap decisions based on instinct and a couple of seconds of looking at a person ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316172324/002-6320582-2337641 ), as he does to corporate finance which he fears because it is a subject that can have to do with scientific, mathematical formulas.
The pop-psychology type books BSBAALJR prefers are in the eyes of industries related to the BSBAAL MBA industry, books about "finance". In the eyes of BSBAALJR they are also probably about "finance". After all, BSBAALJR can always find plenty of gurus amongst his flock, who will proclaim practically anything to fall into the "finance" category.
When BSBAALJR does summon the nerve to dip his toes into the cold water of subjects at least similar to the actual subject of companies obtaining financing for their activities, the text he favors above all others is Principles of Corporate Finance", by Richard A Brealey ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071151451/qid=1110761480/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/002-6320582-2337641 ); in BSBAALJR's eyes, Corporate Finance by Stephen A Ross ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0072831936/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-6320582-2337641?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155 ), is the top sidekick to the Brealey text.
BSBAALJR through Brealey, exposes us to the million different formulas that can be used to come up with a given estimate of whether an investment will be worthwhile, taking into account factors such as inflation, opportunity costs, risk, depreciation, etc.
This can be taken into account that can be not taken into account, there is plenty of flexibility to it.
BSBAAL dabbles in the Modigliani-Miller theory (he calls it the foundation of modern finance), which is supposed to reveal deep truths about finance through illustrating how in a textbook economic world, if there were no taxes and no bankruptcy laws and everyone was equally knowledgeable it would not matter how a company was financed.
In other words, according to the revered Modigliani-Miller pedantry, bankruptcy costs are really important because they are what make how a company is financed important. People knowing more than someone else is really important because it is what makes how a company is financed important. Taxes are really important because if there were no taxes it would not matter how a company is financed.
All of which makes little sense to me, because if taxes were eliminated whether a company sold ten or twenty percent of its ownership for a million bucks would still matter; and even if everyone was equally knowledgeable whether the company sold ten or twenty percent for a million would still matter; and even if the magical society was immune to bankruptcy costs, whether the company paid ten or twenty percent interest on a loan would still matter.
BSBAALJR is said to have given an A+ to a student who wrote that if the body did not need blood, then losing blood would not matter, and so therefore blood is important to our health; at the same time he flunked a student who said that blood is important because it's loss harms our health.
BSBAALJR and his guru Brealey approaches things from the perspective of the moneyed individual weighing various factors in deciding if it would be worth it to buy shares in a company or loan a given amount of money to a company at a given rate; BSBAALJR pays little more than lip-service to questions such as the various ways in which a company can go about raising funds, and the question of how a company goes about raising funds given its own unique characteristics.
Thus BSBAALJR himself is, again, as he was with regards to his financial analyst being focused on individual financial statements and what such should indicate to a potential investor, and for reasons similar to his financial-analyst-training-dysfunction, like a corporation missing a crucial link, as a result of which other links in the corporation are also effected negatively, which is an example of the syndrome his own Toyota production line venerating operations maintenance gurus decry.
BSBAALJR is like a company that depends in part on obtaining loans and selling rights to future profits, that turns to its Finance man to discover how to do this, and lo and behold all the finance man knows about is the various ways in which (2+3+7) x 4 divided by ten can be written out to determine whether some other company is worth investing in.
"...Hmmm...let's see...alternatively it could be 2x4 + 3x4 + 7x4, totalled and divided by ten...then again it could be 2 times 4 divided by 10 plus 3 times 4 divided by ten plus 7 times 4 divided by ten...let's get a cheap thrill out of causing confusion by giving mysterious names to each of these approaches, and using terms each of which have a dozen different meanings..."
But what do you expect? There is such confusion in BSBAALJR's ranks regarding exactly what "financial analysis", "financial management", and "finance" signify, that naturally you end up getting BSBAALJR-trained "finance men" who know the wrong things.
Looking at hundreds of books in the area of finance and related subjects, the only book that I found that dealt with finance looking at things from the perspective of the company that needs to raise money, was a european book, published by "Euromoney Books", entitled, "European Private Equity: A Practical Guide for Vendors, Managers and Entrepreneurs" by Garry Sharp ( http://books.global-investor.com/books/13672.htm?ginPtrCode=00000&identifier= ); and we all know how the US is getting its butt kicked by Europe corporate-performance wise. Yet even this european book, did not appear until 2001. Wonder when a US version of this book will appear? 2020? 2040? The next millenium?
BSBAALJR and his flock miss the fundamental point that his entire group needs to define financial management as deciding what info is needed and applying such info, financial analysis is translating relevant data into useable info, and finance is getting money the company can use through borrowing and selling stock.
Just as the BSBAALJR financial analyst is at a loss when it comes to efficiently solving technological problems having to do with translating data in various formats into tables in spreadsheet databases, so also the BSBAALJR finance men have suffered from the same technological deficiencies.
Principles of Corporate Finance" by star BSBAALJR finance guru Brealey first came out in 1983, but as late as in the year 1998, the "Principles of Coroprate Finance" book or package contained nothing about Spreadsheet modelling, although now it does. This despite the fact that computerized Spreadsheet Modelling, has been a around since 1987 ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=sr_sp_go_as/026-9732927-8714852 ), and the first version of Excel, currently the dominant software for spreadsheet modelling, was introduced in 1985 ( http://www.microsoft.com/canada/home/terms/2.7.1.4_E.asp ). It reminds you of how BSBAALJR and his operations management gurus are gaga over the Toyota Production Line, as if it was just yesterday that Toyota wowed the world with the reliability and cost-efficiency of their cars. It reminds you of how BSBAALJR's most cherished text in operations management is "the Goal", by Goldratt, which first came out way back in 1986. BSBAALJR and his gurus are slow to integrate their work with advances in software spreadsheet and databases.
BSBAALJR avoids those subjects that students are relatively likely to get bad grades in, because he does not allow students to take exams for a given course a second or a third time, or whenever they wish to take such exams. Rather, students must sink or swim with one chance given at an exam. BSBAALJR should instead of avoiding subjects give students flexibility in terms of repeating exams and the times at which exams are taken; but what he does instead is he simply avoids the relatively difficult and useful subjects.
With a little imagination one truth you can see reflected in the teachings of BSBAALJR's own operations management gurus regarding weak links in chains ofproduction producing exponential damage through their effects on other links in the chain, is how inaccuracy piles up on inaccuracy in not an additive fashion but an exponential fashion; that is, when you combine a source of 50 percent inaccuracy with two other sources of 50 percent inaccuracy the result is not 50+50+50 or 150 percent inaccuracy but more like 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 = 338 percent inaccuracy as each error compounds and magnifies other errors. The approach of BSBAALJR'S favorite guru to analyzing how good companies become great ("Good to Great") is an example of such compounded error. Another example of this is BSBAALJR's approach to finance. The errors add up exponentially or multiplicatively not additively. Therefore negative comments posted at Amazon by disgruntled readers of BSBAALJR's favorite finance text, "Principles of Finance" by Brealey, and of BSBAAL'S second finance text Corporate Finance by Ross, give cause for alarm. Note how a disproportionate number of the negative reviewers appear to be European:
Some of Amazon's Negative reviews of Principles of Corporate Finance by Brealey ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0070074178/ref=cm_rev_prev/002-6320582-2337641?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&customer-reviews.start=1&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER ):
Waste of time!, March 26, 2002 Reviewer: Pete (Olten, Switzerland) - See all my reviews The whole book is one giant mistake. This starts with the unlogic structure, poor visualization, non-related exercises and ends with lecturers' material (Powerpoint presentation) that is loaded with mistakes. This book puzzles more than it helps. One huge catastroph that should be forbidden for any serious student of Corporate Finance. Scandal!
TOO MANY ERRORS. Would not recommend for entry-level student, October 20, 2001 Reviewer: A reader Can anyone make sense of all the different versions of this book as well as all the different packaging options? What's the difference between the 6th edition, published in Dec 2000 and the 6th edition, revised June 2001. Wouldn't that be the 7th edition? How do "Principles of Corporate Finance" and "Fundamentals of Corporate Finance", by the same authors, differ?...In addition to these two books there is a Student Guide, Solutions Guide and an Instructors Guide. What's included in "The Complete Package"? What's in "The Wall Street Journal edition"? What's on the CD ROM? What's the reference to the word Powerweb on the cover?...Does anyone realize that the authors/publisher are just capitalizing on the success of the original text and their reputation to crank out overpriced error filled updates
Reviewer: Charles Tsen "cuppytsen" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews This book is filled with tons and tons and tons and tons of errors, just right where one needs to bring the whole financial concepts together. These errors often interrupt learning pace and disrupt the thought process in understanding financial concepts and theories, thus creating difficulties in proving the analyses and in deriving the proper mathematical calculations. The faults doesn't end there. The subtitles are quite misleading. They often don't concur to the subsequent explanatory text; consequently, this creates confusion and utter frustration, especially for someone who is new to the concepts of corporate finance. I am so disappointed since this book is written by Brealey, London Business School, and by Myers, professor of Finance at the MIT's Sloan School of Management, both of which are products of prestigious academic institutions. Such poorly illly-proofread textbook should've never been published in the first place.
"very funny", July 14, 2000 Reviewer: Homer (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews I just don't know what this book is supposed to be. As a text, I really doubt if one can learn anything by reading the stories more tedious than that my grandma is ever able to tell. As a story book, I would much prefer a more entertaining one.
"very funny", July 14, 2000 Reviewer: "luria" (Fontainebleau, France) - See all my reviews To be perfectly frank, I was bored to death by this book (the MBA curriculum required that we read at least two thirds of it). The main problem with the authors was that the they had a very lousy sense of humor, yet assumed that MBA's will have to lump it anyway or will be dying to read through a very plain collection of jokes, as dumb and flat as a flying hedgehog. In addition, the material is very poorly structured and most explanations are based on the gut feelings of the authors rather than some kind of mathematical proof. True, the book covers most of the finance topics (it IS comprehensive), but given the abundancy of excellent and well-organized material in today's market, I would rather make a better choice for studying finance.
Beware of financial managers who study from this book, December 17, 1999 Reviewer: Peter (UK) - See all my reviews I used this book as a part of financial economics component at one of the UK universities. I apologize to the authors, but this is without doubt the worst book I have seen as an undergraduate majoring in economics. The reasons are numerous, I provide a couple of them: 1. You cannot study the topics in the field of finance by relying solely on your intuition and avoiding concepts as trivial as random variables or basic calculus. Since the book is said to be used in the MBA programmes, I believe the title of my review becomes even more relevant. 2. I agree with the reader who claims the authors have a lousy sense of humour. 3. The book is simply too fat. The authors want to speak about everything and manage to analyse - nothing. I have seen at least five books written for the same target audience in the library on a single shelf that would do better than this one.
Worst ever book, December 8, 1999 Reviewer: A reader I just started my MBA program, and this is one of my text books. It's hard to read and incredibly boring. It also does little to help along the student with no prior Finance experience.
Some of Amazon's Negative Reviews of Corporate Finance by Ross ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0072831936/ref=cm_rev_prev/002-6320582-2337641?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&customer-reviews.start=1&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER ):
not a good textbook :(, February 4, 2005 Reviewer: Y. Fan "reader" (NC, USA) - See all my reviews this book wastes alot of pages just for margin. not an easy to read book. the whole semester, we only covered 5 chaps, alot of material is not useful for undergraduates.
dont buy this book, February 20, 2004 Reviewer: Brian Looney (Colorado Springs, CO) - See all my reviews This is the WORST book I have used in my study of finance. It is full of errors and it is written in such a way that it is extremely hard to understand for an average student. There are lots of calculations that are unexplained, assumtions are made that are never addressed,and it is just plain vague in virtually all subjects it discusses. Buy a different title if you actually want to learn about finance.
Bad attempt to confuse the students, May 21, 2003 Reviewer: robyn (Boston) - See all my reviews There were no spreadsheet applications, no calculator applications and no solutions manual for the student. The book reads dry and you need a highlighter to hunt out what the authors are trying to tell you... Bad book , waste of money.
Weak, not relevant and dry, May 15, 2003 Reviewer: robyn (Boston) - See all my reviews I have talked to many people that used this book and we all share the same experience: The book is dry, lacks practical examples, lacks spreadsheet applications and you almost have to sit with a marker and mark the most important concepts. It is not written with you in mind. It is written with how can I sell the Solutions manual to you and how can the professor trick you so that he looks like the big shot. "Essentials of Corporate Finance" was a much better book by the same authors
@2005 David Virgil Hobbs
These are my current opinions which may not exactly correspond with fact
BSBAALJR, the incarnation of MBA programs in general regardless of quality, recoils from the hard-headed study of corporate finance, the way he recoils from study of hard-science in general as evinced by his approach to "Financial Analysis". He pays at least twice as much attention to pop-psychology type books such as one about how we managers should learn to enhance the strong points of workers as opposed to eliminating their weaknesses ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743201140/002-6320582-2337641 ), and another about how we should learn to make snap decisions based on instinct and a couple of seconds of looking at a person ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316172324/002-6320582-2337641 ), as he does to corporate finance which he fears because it is a subject that can have to do with scientific, mathematical formulas.
The pop-psychology type books BSBAALJR prefers are in the eyes of industries related to the BSBAAL MBA industry, books about "finance". In the eyes of BSBAALJR they are also probably about "finance". After all, BSBAALJR can always find plenty of gurus amongst his flock, who will proclaim practically anything to fall into the "finance" category.
When BSBAALJR does summon the nerve to dip his toes into the cold water of subjects at least similar to the actual subject of companies obtaining financing for their activities, the text he favors above all others is Principles of Corporate Finance", by Richard A Brealey ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071151451/qid=1110761480/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/002-6320582-2337641 ); in BSBAALJR's eyes, Corporate Finance by Stephen A Ross ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0072831936/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-6320582-2337641?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155 ), is the top sidekick to the Brealey text.
BSBAALJR through Brealey, exposes us to the million different formulas that can be used to come up with a given estimate of whether an investment will be worthwhile, taking into account factors such as inflation, opportunity costs, risk, depreciation, etc.
This can be taken into account that can be not taken into account, there is plenty of flexibility to it.
BSBAAL dabbles in the Modigliani-Miller theory (he calls it the foundation of modern finance), which is supposed to reveal deep truths about finance through illustrating how in a textbook economic world, if there were no taxes and no bankruptcy laws and everyone was equally knowledgeable it would not matter how a company was financed.
In other words, according to the revered Modigliani-Miller pedantry, bankruptcy costs are really important because they are what make how a company is financed important. People knowing more than someone else is really important because it is what makes how a company is financed important. Taxes are really important because if there were no taxes it would not matter how a company is financed.
All of which makes little sense to me, because if taxes were eliminated whether a company sold ten or twenty percent of its ownership for a million bucks would still matter; and even if everyone was equally knowledgeable whether the company sold ten or twenty percent for a million would still matter; and even if the magical society was immune to bankruptcy costs, whether the company paid ten or twenty percent interest on a loan would still matter.
BSBAALJR is said to have given an A+ to a student who wrote that if the body did not need blood, then losing blood would not matter, and so therefore blood is important to our health; at the same time he flunked a student who said that blood is important because it's loss harms our health.
BSBAALJR and his guru Brealey approaches things from the perspective of the moneyed individual weighing various factors in deciding if it would be worth it to buy shares in a company or loan a given amount of money to a company at a given rate; BSBAALJR pays little more than lip-service to questions such as the various ways in which a company can go about raising funds, and the question of how a company goes about raising funds given its own unique characteristics.
Thus BSBAALJR himself is, again, as he was with regards to his financial analyst being focused on individual financial statements and what such should indicate to a potential investor, and for reasons similar to his financial-analyst-training-dysfunction, like a corporation missing a crucial link, as a result of which other links in the corporation are also effected negatively, which is an example of the syndrome his own Toyota production line venerating operations maintenance gurus decry.
BSBAALJR is like a company that depends in part on obtaining loans and selling rights to future profits, that turns to its Finance man to discover how to do this, and lo and behold all the finance man knows about is the various ways in which (2+3+7) x 4 divided by ten can be written out to determine whether some other company is worth investing in.
"...Hmmm...let's see...alternatively it could be 2x4 + 3x4 + 7x4, totalled and divided by ten...then again it could be 2 times 4 divided by 10 plus 3 times 4 divided by ten plus 7 times 4 divided by ten...let's get a cheap thrill out of causing confusion by giving mysterious names to each of these approaches, and using terms each of which have a dozen different meanings..."
But what do you expect? There is such confusion in BSBAALJR's ranks regarding exactly what "financial analysis", "financial management", and "finance" signify, that naturally you end up getting BSBAALJR-trained "finance men" who know the wrong things.
Looking at hundreds of books in the area of finance and related subjects, the only book that I found that dealt with finance looking at things from the perspective of the company that needs to raise money, was a european book, published by "Euromoney Books", entitled, "European Private Equity: A Practical Guide for Vendors, Managers and Entrepreneurs" by Garry Sharp ( http://books.global-investor.com/books/13672.htm?ginPtrCode=00000&identifier= ); and we all know how the US is getting its butt kicked by Europe corporate-performance wise. Yet even this european book, did not appear until 2001. Wonder when a US version of this book will appear? 2020? 2040? The next millenium?
BSBAALJR and his flock miss the fundamental point that his entire group needs to define financial management as deciding what info is needed and applying such info, financial analysis is translating relevant data into useable info, and finance is getting money the company can use through borrowing and selling stock.
Just as the BSBAALJR financial analyst is at a loss when it comes to efficiently solving technological problems having to do with translating data in various formats into tables in spreadsheet databases, so also the BSBAALJR finance men have suffered from the same technological deficiencies.
Principles of Corporate Finance" by star BSBAALJR finance guru Brealey first came out in 1983, but as late as in the year 1998, the "Principles of Coroprate Finance" book or package contained nothing about Spreadsheet modelling, although now it does. This despite the fact that computerized Spreadsheet Modelling, has been a around since 1987 ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=sr_sp_go_as/026-9732927-8714852 ), and the first version of Excel, currently the dominant software for spreadsheet modelling, was introduced in 1985 ( http://www.microsoft.com/canada/home/terms/2.7.1.4_E.asp ). It reminds you of how BSBAALJR and his operations management gurus are gaga over the Toyota Production Line, as if it was just yesterday that Toyota wowed the world with the reliability and cost-efficiency of their cars. It reminds you of how BSBAALJR's most cherished text in operations management is "the Goal", by Goldratt, which first came out way back in 1986. BSBAALJR and his gurus are slow to integrate their work with advances in software spreadsheet and databases.
BSBAALJR avoids those subjects that students are relatively likely to get bad grades in, because he does not allow students to take exams for a given course a second or a third time, or whenever they wish to take such exams. Rather, students must sink or swim with one chance given at an exam. BSBAALJR should instead of avoiding subjects give students flexibility in terms of repeating exams and the times at which exams are taken; but what he does instead is he simply avoids the relatively difficult and useful subjects.
With a little imagination one truth you can see reflected in the teachings of BSBAALJR's own operations management gurus regarding weak links in chains ofproduction producing exponential damage through their effects on other links in the chain, is how inaccuracy piles up on inaccuracy in not an additive fashion but an exponential fashion; that is, when you combine a source of 50 percent inaccuracy with two other sources of 50 percent inaccuracy the result is not 50+50+50 or 150 percent inaccuracy but more like 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 = 338 percent inaccuracy as each error compounds and magnifies other errors. The approach of BSBAALJR'S favorite guru to analyzing how good companies become great ("Good to Great") is an example of such compounded error. Another example of this is BSBAALJR's approach to finance. The errors add up exponentially or multiplicatively not additively. Therefore negative comments posted at Amazon by disgruntled readers of BSBAALJR's favorite finance text, "Principles of Finance" by Brealey, and of BSBAAL'S second finance text Corporate Finance by Ross, give cause for alarm. Note how a disproportionate number of the negative reviewers appear to be European:
Some of Amazon's Negative reviews of Principles of Corporate Finance by Brealey ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0070074178/ref=cm_rev_prev/002-6320582-2337641?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&customer-reviews.start=1&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER ):
Waste of time!, March 26, 2002 Reviewer: Pete (Olten, Switzerland) - See all my reviews The whole book is one giant mistake. This starts with the unlogic structure, poor visualization, non-related exercises and ends with lecturers' material (Powerpoint presentation) that is loaded with mistakes. This book puzzles more than it helps. One huge catastroph that should be forbidden for any serious student of Corporate Finance. Scandal!
TOO MANY ERRORS. Would not recommend for entry-level student, October 20, 2001 Reviewer: A reader Can anyone make sense of all the different versions of this book as well as all the different packaging options? What's the difference between the 6th edition, published in Dec 2000 and the 6th edition, revised June 2001. Wouldn't that be the 7th edition? How do "Principles of Corporate Finance" and "Fundamentals of Corporate Finance", by the same authors, differ?...In addition to these two books there is a Student Guide, Solutions Guide and an Instructors Guide. What's included in "The Complete Package"? What's in "The Wall Street Journal edition"? What's on the CD ROM? What's the reference to the word Powerweb on the cover?...Does anyone realize that the authors/publisher are just capitalizing on the success of the original text and their reputation to crank out overpriced error filled updates
Reviewer: Charles Tsen "cuppytsen" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews This book is filled with tons and tons and tons and tons of errors, just right where one needs to bring the whole financial concepts together. These errors often interrupt learning pace and disrupt the thought process in understanding financial concepts and theories, thus creating difficulties in proving the analyses and in deriving the proper mathematical calculations. The faults doesn't end there. The subtitles are quite misleading. They often don't concur to the subsequent explanatory text; consequently, this creates confusion and utter frustration, especially for someone who is new to the concepts of corporate finance. I am so disappointed since this book is written by Brealey, London Business School, and by Myers, professor of Finance at the MIT's Sloan School of Management, both of which are products of prestigious academic institutions. Such poorly illly-proofread textbook should've never been published in the first place.
"very funny", July 14, 2000 Reviewer: Homer (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews I just don't know what this book is supposed to be. As a text, I really doubt if one can learn anything by reading the stories more tedious than that my grandma is ever able to tell. As a story book, I would much prefer a more entertaining one.
"very funny", July 14, 2000 Reviewer: "luria" (Fontainebleau, France) - See all my reviews To be perfectly frank, I was bored to death by this book (the MBA curriculum required that we read at least two thirds of it). The main problem with the authors was that the they had a very lousy sense of humor, yet assumed that MBA's will have to lump it anyway or will be dying to read through a very plain collection of jokes, as dumb and flat as a flying hedgehog. In addition, the material is very poorly structured and most explanations are based on the gut feelings of the authors rather than some kind of mathematical proof. True, the book covers most of the finance topics (it IS comprehensive), but given the abundancy of excellent and well-organized material in today's market, I would rather make a better choice for studying finance.
Beware of financial managers who study from this book, December 17, 1999 Reviewer: Peter (UK) - See all my reviews I used this book as a part of financial economics component at one of the UK universities. I apologize to the authors, but this is without doubt the worst book I have seen as an undergraduate majoring in economics. The reasons are numerous, I provide a couple of them: 1. You cannot study the topics in the field of finance by relying solely on your intuition and avoiding concepts as trivial as random variables or basic calculus. Since the book is said to be used in the MBA programmes, I believe the title of my review becomes even more relevant. 2. I agree with the reader who claims the authors have a lousy sense of humour. 3. The book is simply too fat. The authors want to speak about everything and manage to analyse - nothing. I have seen at least five books written for the same target audience in the library on a single shelf that would do better than this one.
Worst ever book, December 8, 1999 Reviewer: A reader I just started my MBA program, and this is one of my text books. It's hard to read and incredibly boring. It also does little to help along the student with no prior Finance experience.
Some of Amazon's Negative Reviews of Corporate Finance by Ross ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0072831936/ref=cm_rev_prev/002-6320582-2337641?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&customer-reviews.start=1&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER ):
not a good textbook :(, February 4, 2005 Reviewer: Y. Fan "reader" (NC, USA) - See all my reviews this book wastes alot of pages just for margin. not an easy to read book. the whole semester, we only covered 5 chaps, alot of material is not useful for undergraduates.
dont buy this book, February 20, 2004 Reviewer: Brian Looney (Colorado Springs, CO) - See all my reviews This is the WORST book I have used in my study of finance. It is full of errors and it is written in such a way that it is extremely hard to understand for an average student. There are lots of calculations that are unexplained, assumtions are made that are never addressed,and it is just plain vague in virtually all subjects it discusses. Buy a different title if you actually want to learn about finance.
Bad attempt to confuse the students, May 21, 2003 Reviewer: robyn (Boston) - See all my reviews There were no spreadsheet applications, no calculator applications and no solutions manual for the student. The book reads dry and you need a highlighter to hunt out what the authors are trying to tell you... Bad book , waste of money.
Weak, not relevant and dry, May 15, 2003 Reviewer: robyn (Boston) - See all my reviews I have talked to many people that used this book and we all share the same experience: The book is dry, lacks practical examples, lacks spreadsheet applications and you almost have to sit with a marker and mark the most important concepts. It is not written with you in mind. It is written with how can I sell the Solutions manual to you and how can the professor trick you so that he looks like the big shot. "Essentials of Corporate Finance" was a much better book by the same authors
@2005 David Virgil Hobbs
These are my current opinions which may not exactly correspond with fact
posted by David Virgil at 3:24 PM
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