--- product_id: 3696990 title: "The Interpretation of Financial Statements" price: "€ 44.70" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.be/products/3696990-the-interpretation-of-financial-statements store_origin: BE region: Belgium --- # Master value investing principles Timeless financial analysis framework Original 1937 edition text replica The Interpretation of Financial Statements **Price:** € 44.70 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 📈 Decode financial statements like a Wall Street insider—before everyone else does! ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Interpretation of Financial Statements - **How much does it cost?** € 44.70 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.be](https://www.desertcart.be/products/3696990-the-interpretation-of-financial-statements) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **Invest Like a Legend:** Learn from Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett’s mentor and the father of value investing. - • **Master the Margin of Safety:** Discover the key to smart investing by identifying undervalued stocks with built-in protection. - • **Unlock the Secrets of Financial Health:** Decode balance sheets and income statements like a pro with Graham’s proven methods. - • **Historical Insight Meets Modern Relevance:** Original 1937 text restored for authentic, foundational financial wisdom. - • **Essential Companion to The Intelligent Investor:** Perfectly complements Graham’s other masterpieces for a complete value investing toolkit. ## Overview The Interpretation of Financial Statements is Benjamin Graham’s foundational guide to analyzing corporate financials, offering timeless techniques to evaluate a company’s true financial health. Originally published in 1937 and restored in its authentic form, this book is essential for investors seeking to master value investing principles and gain a competitive edge in understanding balance sheets and income statements. ## Description "All investors, from beginners to old hands, should gain from the use of this guide, as I have." From the Introduction by Michael F. Price, president, Franklin Mutual Advisors, Inc. Benjamin Graham has been called the most important investment thinker of the twentieth century. As a master investor, pioneering stock analyst, and mentor to investment superstars, he has no peer. The volume you hold in your hands is Graham's timeless guide to interpreting and understanding financial statements. It has long been out of print, but now joins Graham's other masterpieces, The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis, as the three priceless keys to understanding Graham and value investing. The advice he offers in this book is as useful and prescient today as it was sixty years ago. As he writes in the preface, "if you have precise information as to a company's present financial position and its past earnings record, you are better equipped to gauge its future possibilities. And this is the essential function and value of security analysis." Written just three years after his landmark Security Analysis, The Interpretation of Financial Statements gets to the heart of the master's ideas on value investing in astonishingly few pages. Readers will learn to analyze a company's balance sheets and income statements and arrive at a true understanding of its financial position and earnings record. Graham provides simple tests any reader can apply to determine the financial health and well-being of any company. This volume is an exact text replica of the first edition of The Interpretation of Financial Statements, published by Harper & Brothers in 1937. Graham's original language has been restored, and readers can be assured that every idea and technique presented here appears exactly as Graham intended. Highly practical and accessible, it is an essential guide for all business people--and makes the perfect companion volume to Graham's investment masterpiece The Intelligent Investor. Review: Historically significant look at the balance sheet - What this book is: The 1936 edition of "The Interpretation of Financial Statements" by Benjamin Graham, the father of the modern academic discipline of financial analysis. In brief chapters with examples, Graham explains different entries you might find on a corporation's public balance sheet, how those assets and liabilities (debits and credits) add up, and what the meaning is with regard to that corporation's financial health. There are occasional glimpses of average figures by industry, but given that they were compiled in 1935, they are more interesting as a glimpse into the past - some things have changed, much more has remained the same. What this book is not: 1. It's not a primer on double-entry accounting. If you really don't know anything about double-entry bookkeeping, you'll find the book rough going, as basic familiarity is assumed. 2. It's not an editorial. There's remarkably little opinion given about how to value companies based on their balance sheet entries. That task is performed in the author's mammoth magnum opus, Security Analysis (I prefer the 1940 edition). This book does function admirably as a tableside glossary to that work. 3. It won't tell you how to get rich by investing. Readers looking for get-rich-quick guides should look elsewhere. 4. GAAP- or SOAP-compliant. Both Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Sarbanes-Oxley postdated the publication of this book by many years. I enjoyed this book and found it a pleasant, intelligent and necessary introduction to Graham's Security Analysis. If you have interest in learning about the history of financial analysis, you will probably find this book of interest as well. Review: Meet the father of value investing... and Warren Buffett's mentor - "In 1984, [Warren] Buffet returned to Columbia to give a speech commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of "Security Analysis". During that speech, he presented his own investment record as well as those of Ruane, Knapp, and Schloss [other successful investment managers who were students of Graham at Columbia]. In short, each of these men posted investment results that blew away the returns of the overall market. Buffett noted that each of the portfolios varied greatly in the number and type of stocks, but what did not vary was the managers' adherence to Graham's investment principles." It is difficult to encapsulate Benjamin Graham's investing style in a few sentences or paragraphs. Readers are strongly urged to refer to his "The Intelligent Investor" to obtain a more thorough understanding of his investment principles. In brief, the essence of Graham's value investing is that any investment should be worth substantially more than an investor has to pay for it. He believed in thorough analysis, which we would call fundamental analysis. He sought out companies with strong balance sheets, or those with little debt, above-average profit margins, and ample cash flow. (For more insight, see Introduction To Fundamental Analysis and Testing Balance Sheet Strength.) He coined the phrase "margin of safety" to explain his common-sense formula that seeks out undervalued companies whose stock prices are temporarily down, but whose fundamentals, for the long run, are sound. The margin of safety on any investment is the difference between its purchase price and its intrinsic value. The larger this difference is (purchase price below intrinsic), the more attractive the investment - both from a safety and return perspective - becomes. The investment community commonly refers to these circumstances as low value multiple stocks (P/E, P/B, P/S). Graham also believed that market valuations (stock prices) are often wrong. He used his famous "Mr. Market" parable to highlight a simple truth: stock prices will fluctuate substantially in value. His philosophy was that this feature of the market offers smart investors "an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal." ## Features - Great product! ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #88,558 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #18 in Valuation (Books) #29 in Accounting Theory #37 in Financial Risk Management (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 636 Reviews | ## Images ![The Interpretation of Financial Statements - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51huZn9suXL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Historically significant look at the balance sheet *by N***E on November 17, 2007* What this book is: The 1936 edition of "The Interpretation of Financial Statements" by Benjamin Graham, the father of the modern academic discipline of financial analysis. In brief chapters with examples, Graham explains different entries you might find on a corporation's public balance sheet, how those assets and liabilities (debits and credits) add up, and what the meaning is with regard to that corporation's financial health. There are occasional glimpses of average figures by industry, but given that they were compiled in 1935, they are more interesting as a glimpse into the past - some things have changed, much more has remained the same. What this book is not: 1. It's not a primer on double-entry accounting. If you really don't know anything about double-entry bookkeeping, you'll find the book rough going, as basic familiarity is assumed. 2. It's not an editorial. There's remarkably little opinion given about how to value companies based on their balance sheet entries. That task is performed in the author's mammoth magnum opus, Security Analysis (I prefer the 1940 edition). This book does function admirably as a tableside glossary to that work. 3. It won't tell you how to get rich by investing. Readers looking for get-rich-quick guides should look elsewhere. 4. GAAP- or SOAP-compliant. Both Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Sarbanes-Oxley postdated the publication of this book by many years. I enjoyed this book and found it a pleasant, intelligent and necessary introduction to Graham's Security Analysis. If you have interest in learning about the history of financial analysis, you will probably find this book of interest as well. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Meet the father of value investing... and Warren Buffett's mentor *by D***D on October 30, 2008* "In 1984, [Warren] Buffet returned to Columbia to give a speech commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of "Security Analysis". During that speech, he presented his own investment record as well as those of Ruane, Knapp, and Schloss [other successful investment managers who were students of Graham at Columbia]. In short, each of these men posted investment results that blew away the returns of the overall market. Buffett noted that each of the portfolios varied greatly in the number and type of stocks, but what did not vary was the managers' adherence to Graham's investment principles." It is difficult to encapsulate Benjamin Graham's investing style in a few sentences or paragraphs. Readers are strongly urged to refer to his "The Intelligent Investor" to obtain a more thorough understanding of his investment principles. In brief, the essence of Graham's value investing is that any investment should be worth substantially more than an investor has to pay for it. He believed in thorough analysis, which we would call fundamental analysis. He sought out companies with strong balance sheets, or those with little debt, above-average profit margins, and ample cash flow. (For more insight, see Introduction To Fundamental Analysis and Testing Balance Sheet Strength.) He coined the phrase "margin of safety" to explain his common-sense formula that seeks out undervalued companies whose stock prices are temporarily down, but whose fundamentals, for the long run, are sound. The margin of safety on any investment is the difference between its purchase price and its intrinsic value. The larger this difference is (purchase price below intrinsic), the more attractive the investment - both from a safety and return perspective - becomes. The investment community commonly refers to these circumstances as low value multiple stocks (P/E, P/B, P/S). Graham also believed that market valuations (stock prices) are often wrong. He used his famous "Mr. Market" parable to highlight a simple truth: stock prices will fluctuate substantially in value. His philosophy was that this feature of the market offers smart investors "an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal." ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Timeless classic on financial statements. *by D***E on December 30, 2020* I read this book because it was recommended by Warren Buffett it was a great student of Benjamin Graham. I thought the book was well written and there’s a timeless classic that provides financial guidance that holds true many years after it was written. The author provides a good overview of income statements and balance sheets and important areas to focus on when reviewing company financials. ## Frequently Bought Together - The Interpretation of Financial Statements - Security Analysis, Seventh Edition: Principles and Techniques - The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed.: The Definitive Book on Value Investing --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.be/products/3696990-the-interpretation-of-financial-statements](https://www.desertcart.be/products/3696990-the-interpretation-of-financial-statements) --- *Product available on Desertcart Belgium* *Store origin: BE* *Last updated: 2026-09-25*