1 comments about Bailouts or Bail-Ins: Responding to Financial Crises in Emerging Markets.

1. I don't know where to begin with this review, but I just wanted to say this is one of the best books on the subject and anyone interested in global economics and markets should read this book.

5 comments about Money, the Financial System, and the Economy (6th Edition) (Adison-Wesley Series in Economics).

1. Having taken only a few basic econ courses in college I was looking 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 simple nor too complex. Everything was cogently written and accessible to a layman. I found answers to all my questions and it's organized in a manner that chapters can be read independently of one another. It will serve as an excellent reference manual.



2. 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.



3. 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".
   
   This is a great book for undergrads who are not economics majors - the market features are covered effectively, thoroughly, and without the jargon that characterizes most exchanges between seasoned economists.
   
   This is a decent book for undergrad econ majors, although by the time most of us get around to Money & Banking or Financial Economics, we've had intermediate macro and micro and are juniors looking forward to internships. Still, the presentation is not overly complex, and the assumption that the student is a beginner does indeed help for those who missed a full grasp of some of the finer points of theory.
   
   This is not a great book for grad students, although there really aren't any great books for grad students in financial econ. MBA students will focus more in detail on the derivative and futures markets, particularly in terms of pricing assets. MSF students have their modeling books. Econ students really have to turn to the journals to broaden their scope in terms of theory, and especially to find answers to the "What if's" of imperfect markets.
   
   Written by a grad student in Economics at the University of Missouri - St. Louis



4. This book is easy to read and explains the finacial markets and intermediaries well. I go to Ohio University and this is the primary text book for the class I am in, the chapters are relatively short and the questions are well laid out. We don't use the book enough for me to give it 5 stars.



5. I never got this book and the seller never responded to my emails. An awful experience. I'm trying to get a refund from Amazon.

5 comments about Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve.

1. It's taking me a long time to read this because I become so angry that I have to put the boook down. This well-documented collection of mistakes at the highest financial levels, and the following "spin", demonstrates that the bigger the job, the more likelihood of error, and the greatest likelihood is that the person in charge maintains arrogant ignorance and shovels it out to the unsuspecting public.



2. The book appears to contain a few things of substance, but you have to look so hard to get past the vitriole it's almost not worth the effort. I'm not a big Greenspan fan and certainly not his apologist, but Fleckenstein appears to be pissed beyond reason. I get the impression Fleckenstein thought he should have been appointed Fed Chair and hasn't gotten over it yet. If Greenspan was as imbecilic as Fleckenstein tries to paint him, he wouldn't be able to find his way to the men's room without a GPS. Come on Fleck, get over it. You've got something to say. Could you possibly say it without all the name calling and innuendo. Why not take Greenspan out on the playground and you two can duke it out? Take a deep breath. Count to ten. Have a glass of wine.



3. Alan Greenspan, called The Maestro, has almost singlehandedly created the two largest financial bubbles in world history. Federal Reserve is the worlds biggest central bank, and should have understood the nature of the both the it-bubble in the last half of the nineties, and the housing bubble in the naughties. But it didn't.
   
   Instead, Alan Greenspan has been the cheerleader for both bubbles. He consistently cut rates when the stock market was in turmoil. He was bragging about the productivity gains in the 90s (which turned out to be a scam). He kept on insisting that it is impossible to know if there is a bubble in a market, before it is pricked. During the housing bubble, Greenspan was talking about the benefits of securitizing mortgages. Even today, Greenspans biggest worry is that the crisis will lead to tighter regulation of the financial industry.
   
   The book is short, to the point, and well researched. It is extremely timely. Fleckenstein is deeply engaged, and it would do him well to give Greenspan a nudge from time to time. Still, it is well worth reading.



4. Why is this country in this mess? Thanks to you, Mr. Greenspan. Just read Fred Sheehan and Bill
   Flekenstein's book. It's is written well and explains why... Greenspan.



5. A friend at work turned me on to Fleckenstien's articles during the peaks of the housing bubble, and all along he predicted the housing market crash. The only thing he had wrong was the timing as thought it would happen sooner. This book sheds light on Greenspans role in two ecenomic bubbles and does so with Felckenstien's unique sense of humor. It is tough to make subjects like this interesting, but this book is a good read. Felckenstien predicted both "bubble bursts" in his columns when everyone else was screaming about the next tech stock that was going to take over the world or talking about how "real estate never goes down." If he says the sh-t is going to hit the fan and you are standing in front of the fan, you should probably move.

1 comments about Ben Bernanke's Fed: The Federal Reserve After Greenspan.

1. Harris has written a book which is scholarly yet highly entertaining. A crystal clear, in depth ,and accurate explanation of the Federal Reserve and its Chairman.Also included are numerous short anecdotes
   and clever comments from Fed history.

5 comments about Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free (Revised and Updated).

1. It should be very clear by now that the current debt-based monetary system is rotten to the core and on the brink of collapse. The credit bubble and the fiat-money system built on it will come to an end. Yet, the alleged "solution" of the author is pure Keynesian nonsense. If the state assumes full control of the fiat money supply, as if it did not have it already, the result will be even more inflation and certain disaster in the end.
   
   In spite of all the conspiracy nonsense out there, the Fed, and any central bank for that matter, is nothing but an instrument of the state for generating inflation. All governments love and are absolutely committed to inflation and credit expansion, by the way. The Fed is rather a "partnership" between the private banks and the state. It is a symbiotic relationship from which both parties benefit at the expense of normal citizens.
   
   In my opinion the only real solution is not to have the state issue fiat money directly, as the author suggest, but to return to sound and honest money instead, that is, a gold standard with 100% reserve requirements. It is the fractional-reserve practice (institutionalized fraud) and credit expansion which are the root of all monetary evil.
   
   I don't want to end this review without quoting Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Austrian economist) on Keynes and his interventionist/inflationary economic system: "Here we have Keynes, then: the twentieth century's most famous "economist." Out of false theories of employment, money, and interest, he has distilled a fantastically wrong theory of capitalism and of a socialist paradise erected out of paper money."



2. Helen Brown's book in the most important book I've read in years. She predicts all of our current banking woes. What is a hedge fund? Now I know. What are derivatives? Now I know. Why are Fannie May and Freddie Mac almost insolvent? Now I know. Helen predicts that they will both "vaporize." I hope everyone is paying attention. This is one of the most important books out there. If I were I stock investor I'd have known years ago to sell. Had I been able to invest in gold and silver, Helen told me to do so years ago when I read her book. It's all falling apart right before our eyes and if you want to know why, read this book.



3. Web of Debt provides a clear, detailed understanding of our money system--This system is clearly in crisis but what Brown shows through this book is that we can clearly transform what looks like a crisis into an incredible opportunity to institute changes in a system that is collapsing and as a result, come out the other end better than ever.
   
   Its terrific!



4. A shocking eye opener about the united states monetary system and the effect on other nations around the world. Ms Brown,.J.D. does an excellent job explaining the confusing details of a system set up by private bankers to control the world wealth. This monetary policy is deliberately complicated to keep the truth from the United States citizens. Making the US dollar payable for oil from Opec was a master stroke. The federal reserve system is not the US government but private bankers. This book is full of history about the political climate and the parts played by presidents Hamilton and Jefferson and the bankers of England. I had to read some chapters twice,especially about the stock market. This is fantastic stuff. I think the euro will replace the dollar. I learned a great deal about finances. Thanks for a very good book. Robert Redding



5. Someone searching for this book will probably already be familiar with books such as Creature From Jekyll Island and The Money Masters. For them, this is a good refresher book with a material pertaining to our current mortgage and debt bubbles. For those who are only now starting to try and figure out what is going on in our world and where the money is going, this is a great start. The author of this book has managed to provide a brief history and diagnose the current failures in our financial institutions while showing us that there is a way out and towards a more prosperous world in an entertaining manner. Read this book and then pass it on.

4 comments about Money, Banking and Financial Markets.

1. 
   I've read the books of Mishkin and Hubbard, also well written pieces.
   
   However, Cecchetti seems to be able to explain concepts with more clarity and in a way that makes one remember the various theories long after reading the book.
   
   He should try to develop further the chapter on futures and give more emphasis on hedging, since this is the trend financial markets are moving towards these days, without having to impinge on books devoted solely to the topic.
   
   He may also want to expound more on the chapter covering foreign exchange and international markets, to make the book more relevant to international readers.
   
   on the chapter on monetary policy, since he touched on foreign central banks he may also wish to write about how other countries implement monetary policy, esp how the Bank of England uses the repo market to conduct money easing/contraction.
   
   Am looking forward to a much-improved version in the future.



2. This is an excellent undergraduate text on financial institutions and monetary economics. The exposition is rigorous yet avoids abstruse math. The best part is the section on monetary economics, where the author dispenses with IS/LM analysis and instead directly analyzes aggregate supply and demand. He writes from the perspective of a central banker (which he was), showing how central banks use interest rates to influence inflation and output. The writing is quite clear, and the numerous sidebars on historical and contemporary issues are excellent. Although some subjects (such as exchange rates) could have been developed in greater depth, this is a great textbook overall.
   
   Ideological footnote: Many undergraduate econ books assume (more or less explicitly) that disturbances in the macroeconomy are eventually self-correcting. This book has a somewhat different starting place: it takes it for granted that regulators will oversee the banking system and that central bankers will act to close output gaps and keep inflation under control (in fact, the latter assumption is built into the author's construction of the aggregate demand curve). According to the author, modern central banks have developed a fairly good understanding of business cycles and know how to moderate them through the use of monetary instruments. Let's hope he's right.



3. I teach undergrad business and economics, and have found this text to be very effective with my students, particularly as a follow-up to macro 101. One of the best things about the text is that it is well integrated; other texts seem somewhat choppy or fragmented.



4. The book is in excellent condition, but try to find out the reason for the delay by the post office, and try to avoid it. It does not make sense to receive the book a month after I make the order, especially I have upgraded the posting service.

5 comments about Foundations of Finance: The Logic and Practice of Financial Management (6th Edition) (MyFinanceLab Series).

1. I use this book at the University of Wisconsin Stout. I think this book is excellent. I'm taking a copy with me to London. "A must" if your a Finance major.



2. This was the best. A very clear and concise book for the serious student being introduced to the subject of Finance. Other books on the subject I've seen are very abstruse or just plain hard to read aside from weighing a ton. I had another book twice as thick to complement this one and my class abandoned it in short order. This book is comparatively light and chalk full of useful ideas and examples laid out in an organized and methodical manner. The generous use of charts and tables was executed well. Probably as simple as finance can possibly be put while still retaining the rigor and teaching the processes necessary for making financial computations.

   Topics included are on basic valuation of various securities and projects using discounted cash flows, capital budget management, liquidity management, etc. I'm still learning from it after school. There simply wasn't enough time to fully cover everything in the book that I would have wanted. Now I'm ready to tackle more advanced corporate finance books/materials.

   This is an introductory book for someone who may be interested in becoming a financial analyst but is obviously geared to the educational market for use in schools. The academic slant limits its applicability somewhat. Although it may give a stock market player who wants to start understanding the systematic process involved in the valuation of securities on a cash flow basis some insight for example, discussion on valuation by multiples like P/Es is virtually absent.

   Nonetheless a great book.




3. This is an excellent text. I've read it thoroughly. The material , as presented, assumes a robust course in accounting at the college level. This text is for a student desiring a complete rendition in basic finance topics and techniques. The text is replete with many examples and challenging problems of various complexities. The presentation is easy to read. The book is directed to students perhaps majoring in economics or finance. It is not a purely descriptive rendition of finance. A

   considerable amount of so called "numbers crunching" is involved in reviewing this text. As such, the book serves the analytic student optimally. The text is devoid of the most complicated analytics inherent in "quantitatively oriented texts". There is a good appendix on the use of financial calculators ,as well as, present value calculations and other useful knowledge supplemental to the study of finance. This book would be most useful to students planning their careers as financial analysts, corporate planners or private entrepreneurs.




4. it seems like the writers of this text's intentions were to confuse the hell out of finance majors and intimidate them so that they would stay away from the finance 'game'.
   
   I'm sure the book is chockfull of information, but using it for the two past semesters, i havent learned as much as i wanted to. Perhaps in the next edition they will be able to make the text easier to understand and read.
   
   Finance can be a very intimidating subject, and the writers of this book seemed to have no intention of making the topic easy to understand.



5. I am a junior finance faculty. After instructing economics courses for several years it was the first time I'd be teaching finance. I've been using this book for almost 2 months now. It is clear and very well organized.
   
   The first 4 chapters elaborates on how to read the financial statements of a firm. The chapters that follow discuss the valuation of financial securities. The appendix is very concise since it focuses on how to use a financial calculator, which is a must for a financial manager. The remaining chapters of the book focus on various topics like investment and capital budgeting decisions as well as dividend policy of a firm.
   
   I highly recommend this book as a primary text for undergraduate finance courses.

5 comments about Intermediate Financial Management (with Thomson One).

1. easy to read and cover in every topic.



2. I wasn't too impressed with this text. I found that many of the chapters were incredibly verbose, and seemed to confuse me even more in some instances. Perhaps one of the problems (obviously not Brigham's fault) was that my prof "wizzed" through some of these chapters, so reading the "wordy, never-ending" chapters was overwhelming. Further, I think that some concepts could have been more simplified, when instead Brigham seemed to ramble and "lost" me.

   In short, I think some "academics" (profs, grad students, etc) might be impressed with the depth with which Brigham wrote. However, not all of the students are on the same level, and this must be taken into consideration when the author revises the text. We are using the text as a guide for learning, not as a means to evaluate the author's aptitude in the field of finance...




3. one of the best sources of corporate finance



4. Good textbook, wish it provided cd with all powerpoint,spreadsheets and end of chapter solutiions.



5. This book is a P.O.S. The explanations are poor and confusing, results of calculations are used with no reference to the formulas (which are discussed many chapters later), I frequently find myself referring to other works for clarity, even on subjects I know well. Profs use this piece of trash because they are too lazy to make the migration to any of the many other better corporate finance books that are now available. Brigham checked out of the authorship business many years ago. This is now simply mechanical production from the Thomson machine.

5 comments about The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means.

1. Soros goes where nobody has ever gone before, he actually proposes a new paradigm that contradicts actual economic theory common sense, which can be empirically proved on an everyday basis. This new paradigm, based on his theory of reflexivity, helped me understand better how markets tend to behave sometimes, and will surely help every reader in the same way. Definately recommended for everyone who is interested in the subject, from economic theory grad students, to hedge fund managers.



2. Soros' little book is a delightful read due to an exceptional sincerity and intellectual honesty. His youthful curiosity and seemingly consuming desire for philosophical debate is disarming and infectious but also a bit narcissistic, as student "bull sessions" tend to be. In fact, the two smiling photographs of him at the end of the book corroborate the aura of a person eager and happy for philosophical discourse and being entertained by and thoroughly enjoying a reciprocal and progressive discussion.
   
   He admits trying to be a philosopher who worked out a new theory, reflexivity, that is to say humans engage in two functions: l. cognitive objective analysis and 2. manipulative and subjective actions designed to evoke change and personal benefits. The two functions interact, hence reflexivity.
   
   Karl Popper was Soros' philosophical mentor at LSE, and Soros denies Popper's Unity of Method, i.e. the scientific method and the social scientific method are and should be the same. Soros denies this and rightly so. Though he mentions Hayek only once very briefly as being anti-communist, he seems unaware that Hayek had already exhaustively analyzed the need for an entirely different method for economic analysis and the social sciences. In fact, Hayek believes the attempt to mimic the method of the natural sciences in the social sciences, in particular in economics, has done substantial harm. Soros, who seems quite pre-occupied with outmatching Popper and limited to him, could have benefited from Hayek, Dilthey, Wittgenstein and many others who have already partially or fully worked through epistemologically what he is doing to Popper. But it's quite understandable that he wants to outmatch his professor. Lots of students have that impulse and lots of profs have experienced this pattern. It's proof that Soros retained a youthful disposition throughout his life.
   
   Soros correctly denounces both the Enlightenment's objectivity and rationalism as well as the post-modern idiom which he ties to Bush and Karl Rove. Though being aware that ignorance determines far more than knowledge and rationality, he still believes that understanding reality should take precedence over manipulating it. For this was not done by Bush and cohorts, who hoodwinked the nation into the Iraq war, causing a precipitous decline in U.S. power and influence. Soros has it absolutely right here and shows the same honesty and objectivity he personally displayed when he characterizes his experience as a 14 year old Jewish youth in Budapest in '44 hiding under false identification as "exhilarating" and "high adventure," an admission that may cause some criticism.
   
   Soros seems to overemphasize the impact ideas and philosophical notions have on politics. Politics is quite indifferent to ideas and philosophical analysis. Power and influence mediate and resolve issues in the political arena, not rational debate.
   
   Too often, Soros assumes that having made what he calls "a killing" in the markets is proof of superior intellectual analysis relative to overall economic analysis outside the financial sector. This is a somewhat egotistical and a logical flaw, for too many who lost a fortune in the stock markets have, nevertheless, given brilliant and valid analyses of socio-economic events. His contrary-mindedness and, to be sure, many aspects of his theory of reflexivity, no doubt were crucial in making fortunes. But will he admit that this involves redistributing wealth from many smaller investors to the few and, thus, one can conclude that the heavy participation of tens of millions of Americans in the stock markets actually kept them from increasing the median family/individual net worth? It made them poorer than they would otherwise have been.
   
   Criticizing both classical equilibrium analysis and the Rational Expectation School, Soros then ventures into a more detailed analysis of the background, causes and course of the current economic malaise. Credit expansion, the Japanese carrying trade, budget deficits, expanding leverage funds, etc. all interacted to create what he terms a "superbubble" of which the subprime mortgage fiasco is just a trigger. It all began with the recycling of the petrodollars in the late sixties and early seventies. He covers the banking crisis of the '80s, the international crisis of the '90s and, quite correctly, faults Greenspan for taking interest rates down to 1 percent between '01 to '04. In so doing, Greenspan caused the real estate bubble. It spread the risk, causing more risks to be assumed. Here Soros is at his best. He believes that risk in this period was passed on through newly fangled instruments and sophisticated formulae from those who knew it best to those who knew it far less. Regulators lost track of risk assessment and catastrophically abdicated their duties.
   
   China will challenge the U.S. faster than is believed and thus, Soros asserts, again quite correctly, that the Project for a New American Century, which Bush and cohorts used extensively to guide policy, will prove to be highly ironic. Though he doesn't say so, he agrees with Kevin Phillips' conclusion that the financial industry was allowed to get too big. Finally, Soros affirms Barney Frank's solution for the subprime mess.
   
   Unfortunately, Soros' analysis is limited to the financial markets and does not deal with lots of other factors that heavily determine and impinge on the U.S. economy. For that, the reader may want to consult my own assessment on why the U.S. needs an economic miracle by accessing "http://comparativegems.blogspot.com/" which provides an overall comparative historical evaluation of the U.S. economy which Soros does not deal with.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   



3. Having read all of the Soros books I would say this is less convoluted and less disappointing than most. If you are looking for concrete investment ideas prepare to be let down. Interesting discussion of markets and the current crisis in particular-as the title suggests Soros is bearish and not without good reason. Only time will tell if he got it right this time.



4. The core idea of this book is a concept that Soros calls "reflexivity". He describes this concept as "a two way connection between participants' thinking and the situation in which they participate." Reflexivity in the financial markets, according to Soros, leads to "an element of uncertainty in the course of events that is absent from natural phenomena."
   
   What Soros fails to explain is why the uncertainties caused by reflexivity are special and need to be treated differently from other uncertainties in the financial markets (and in life) that we take for granted. No one believes that financial markets behave deterministically. Much of the activitiy in the financial world aims at measuring and allocating risks of all sorts, including those that arise from behavior that is widely acknowledged as psychologically driven.
   The New Paradigm for Financial Markets (Soros)
   
   Thus, despite claiming a philosophical advance that he implies is on a par with those of Karl Popper and Emmanuel Kant, Soros has a hard time offering up any suggestions for improvement upon current approaches to risk management or regulation. He does offer some specific policy prescriptions, but most of these are narrow proposals for dealing with the 2008 credit crisis, and none are particularly original. For the most part, he resorts to vague suggestions such as that credit creation must be regulated more strictly (but how, exactly?).
   
   Amusingly, at the end of a book whose core thesis is that there are intractable uncertainties in financial markets, Soros provides a journal of his investment decisions at the beginning of 2008 beginning which he starts by making, with great confidence, specific predictions about market direction (so much for reflexivity??). In last journal entry, he goes on the record as having lost money on his bets.
   
   The bottom line: having been a successful speculator some years ago does not make one qualified to pontificate on the nature of the human condition of the limitations of knowledge.



5. Legendary financier George Soros is worried. The financial markets face the worst credit crisis since the Depression and their existing paradigm needs to be replaced. The new paradigm Soros recommends is based on what he calls the "theory of reflexivity." This book-length essay provides a crash course in the billionaire investor's philosophy and view of financial markets, the origins and consequences of the current credit crunch, the boom-bust model and the behavior of market participants. Soros intersperses his market analysis with enough personal details from his early life and career to keep the book lively. He is also quite vocal in his political beliefs; Democrats will probably appreciate the case he makes against President George W. Bush's administration and its policies. One weakness of the book, other than its repetitiveness as Soros explains his theory, is that he relies heavily on technical and financial jargon, which makes it tough to penetrate and may prove a barrier to some readers. Ironically, he seems to be fully aware of this shortcoming when he writes that readers may find one of his particularly theoretical chapters to be "somewhat repetitive and hard-going." Nevertheless, his warm personal voice and the depth of his financial experience, which spans more than half a decade, is hard to match. Thus, getAbstract notes that this book has much to offer executives, investors, and students of financial markets and theory. (As is true of every Abstract, the following views are those of the author and not of getAbstract.)

5 comments about Financial Management: Theory & Practice (with Thomson ONE - Business School Edition 1-Year Printed Access Card).

1. I was not looking forward to this class and the textbook has proved to be interesting and not a bad read for a textbook.



2. The book was exactly what I was looking for. It was in great shape and it also came with a study guide! It was definitely worth what I paid:)



3. There are a lot of things I liked about this book. For starters, it is written pretty coherently, and generally does not get too wordy. With the topic it is covering this is a feat in and of itself. The color schemes they use throughout the book to separate different examples, figures, etc further makes the book accessible.
   
   The problems for each chapter are separated into categories for easy, intermediate, and difficult and are labeled by topic as well. This is very useful for studying if you want to brush up on a specific topic or difficulty. The back of the book provides answers to all quantitative questions, although it doesn't show you how to work out any of them.
   
   What I didn't really like was that it was sometime difficult to find out how to work certain problems at the end of each chapter. Fairly often you will find the method to solve a problem embedded/hidden within a paragraph rather than highlighted separately. This generally does not apply to the main equations, but it can still make doing homework tedious with all the searching. Also, with the exception of the simpler chapters (Time Value of Money, and Exchange Rates) where there are numerous examples, most other chapters use one example that is either stretched out across the chapter if the problem is in depth or there will simply be one basic example. This can make it difficult to figure out how to solve any types of variations of the problem you may be required to do.
   
   All in all, a very solid book that makes this difficult course very manageable (assuming you have a decent professor).



4. This book is simply amazing, very easy to follow and learn. It explains basic concepts, and has some useful material - in the book as well as online - that will help you. I frankly didn't even need the study guide; I thought the book by itself was great for me. The authors have taken a lot of trouble with detailing and giving examples, for someone new to finance to pick up on. There are chapters on financial statements, time value of money, bonds, risk, stocks valuation, financial forecasting, capital costs & budgeting, cash flow estimation, financial planning, corporate valuation, IPO's, working capital management, and a whole lot more (don't let the size of the book scare you!). If there is something you didn't understand, you can always use the one-year access card (one per book) to their online resources, and download the excel spreadsheets for each chapter. There are also 4 web chapters for more information. Online, they have explained how they work out questions in the book. The examples are very realistic, outlining actual companies and incidents that have occurred in the US. This edition (12th) has more end-of-chapter problems than the previous editions.
   
   I have experience with accounting, but haven't really done much since 6 years with it. So this book really helped me get back my basics. The Finance class that I took in the summer was a real breeze after this (many thanks to Professor Haddad too, ofcourse). And everyone knows how fast stuff is completed in the Summer! I definitely recommend buying this book. For people with prior experience in Finance, you could even buy something more advanced to go along with it.
   
   And thank you Amazon, for the immediate shipment. I had a test the very next week of starting. I hadn't bought the text book, till it was prescribed in the first class. So I opted for the one-day shipping. The book was well wrapped and in excellent condition. It was totally worth it.
   
   Overall, you guys deserve all 5 stars!



5. I was tortured by ridiculously hard exams and a calculator that made we want to tear my hair out. But it wasn't the book's fault. I am going to school while I work so I don't have a lot of time to devote to a class. The book was well paced and not to wordy. It stressed reading comprehension and had many levels of financial problems for every type of reader. I purchased the study guide to understand the harder questions. It was a blessing on my open book tests. The text book comes with the answers (not solutions) in the appendix, but did have the solutions to the self-test questions. It also comes with a handy cheat sheet of equations for every chapter in the appendix as well.