So much for the notion ‘those who can, do–those who cant, teach. Mulford and Comiskey function successfully both as college professors and real-world financial mercenaries. These guys know their balance sheets. The Financial Numbers Game should serve as a survival manual for both serious individual investors and industry pros who study and act upon the interpretation of financial statements. This unique blend of battle-earned scholarship and quality writing is a must-read/must-have reference for serious financial statement analysis." —Bob Acker, Editor/Publisher, The Acker Letter

"Wall Streets unforgiving attention to quarterly earnings presents ever increasing pressure on CFOs to manage earnings and expectations. The Financial Numbers Game provides a clear explanation of the ways in which management can stretch, bend, and break accounting rules to reach the desired bottom line. This arms the serious investor or financial analyst with the healthy skepticism required to drive beyond reported results to a clear understanding of a firms true performance." —Mark Hurley, Managing Director, Training and Development, Global Corporate and Investment Banking, Bank of America

Financial Modeling with Crystal Ball and Excel is a comprehensive, well-written guide to one of the most useful analysis tools available to professional risk managers and quantitative analysts. This is a must-have book for anyone using Crystal Ball, and anyone wanting an overview of basic risk management concepts.

Statistical Tools in Finance and Insurance presents ready-to-use solutions, theoretical developments and method construction for many practical problems in quantitative finance and insurance. Written by practitioners and leading academics in the field, this book offers a unique combination of topics from which every market analyst and risk manager will benefit.

Covering topics such as heavy tailed distributions, implied trinomial trees, support vector machines, valuation of mortgage-backed securities, pricing of CAT bonds, simulation of risk processes and ruin probability approximation, the book does not only offer practitioners insight into new methods for their applications, but it also gives theoreticians insight into the applicability of the stochastic technology. Additionally, the book provides the tools, instruments and (online) algorithms for recent techniques in quantitative finance and modern treatments in insurance calculations.

Written in an accessible and engaging style, this self-instructional book makes a good use of extensive examples and full explanations. The design of the text links theory and computational tools in an innovative way. All Quantlets for the calculation of examples given in the text are supported by the academic edition of XploRe and may be executed via XploRe Quantlet Server (XQS). The downloadable electronic edition of the book enables one to run, modify, and enhance all Quantlets on the spot.

"Dr. Stamatis has tackled an area that is just learning the tremendous value of the Six Sigma methodology and how to use it. The financial community is proving that Six Sigma can and will reduce errors and prevent mistakes from occurring. Dr. Stamatis lays out the formula for success by starting with the foundations of Six Sigma and then moving into its application in financial arenas. He has given numerous examples and references that will assist in developing this methodology into a reality for your organization."

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Money shows that any numbskull can master personal finance. In this second edition, a father-and-daughter writing team, Robert K. Heady and Christy Heady, give readers the best advice culled from their many years of experience in consumer rights and money management. The Headys believe that money must be managed for the long haul and that there are no quick ways to build wealth. The guide is easy to read, witty, and scornful of the hype dished out by banks and other peddlers of personal finance. It provides a plethora of personal-finance tips for consumers, including how to get the best deal on a mortgage, pay off debt, and bank online. The authors expose financial pitfalls such as bank-sold mutual funds, dealer financing for motor vehicles, extended warranties, and those dreaded bank fees. A full chapter is devoted to the evils of credit cards, which they feel is the biggest ripoff in the financial world. The writers contend that the toughest thing about saving is making the decision to do it. You should get going by putting aside a little amount of money each month through a mutual fund or dividend reinvestment plan. "The whole idea of managing money is to save a dollar here and there and then take that dollar and build it into two," they write. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to understand that.

Investing is all about common sense. Owning a diversified portfolio of stocks and holding it for the long term is a winner’s game. Trying to beat the stock market is theoretically a zero-sum game (for every winner, there must be a loser), but after the substantial costs of investing are deducted, it becomes a loser’s game. Common sense tells us—and history confirms—that the simplest and most efficient investment strategy is to buy and hold all of the nation’s publicly held businesses at very low cost. The classic index fund that owns this market portfolio is the only investment that guarantees you with your fair share of stock market returns.

To learn how to make index investing work for you, there’s no better mentor than legendary mutual fund industry veteran John C. Bogle. Over the course of his long career, Bogle—founder of the Vanguard Group and creator of the world’s first index mutual fund—has relied primarily on index investing to help Vanguard’s clients build substantial wealth. Now, with The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, he wants to help you do the same.

Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing will show you how to incorporate this proven investment strategy into your portfolio. It will also change the very way you think about investing. Successful investing is not easy. (It requires discipline and patience.) But it is simple. For it’s all about common sense.

As described by Lewis, liar's poker is a game played in idle moments by workers on Wall Street, the objective of which is to reward trickery and deceit. With this as a metaphor, Lewis describes his four years with the Wall Street firm Salomon Brothers, from his bizarre hiring through the training program to his years as a successful bond trader. Lewis illustrates how economic decisions made at the national level changed securities markets and made bonds the most lucrative game on the Street. His description of the firm's personalities and of the events from 1984 through the crash of October 1987 are vivid and memorable.

The wildly financially successful authors of this book state, early on, that a reader will not find in its pages specific advice on how to make or invest money. It's more a book of philosophy (note the "why" in the title), and if it's not exactly Kierkegaardian in scope or language, this collaboration of real estate magnate and rags-to-riches financial guru manages to entertain and to inform. Written in bite-size chunks and adorned with quotes (some from the authors' previous works or speeches) and graphs, it explains why some people get rich and others… well, don't. Some tales are shopworn: the many references to Warren Buffett are tales well told, for example, but what works best are the aphorisms and the personality type descriptions within the "CASHFLOW Quadrant"—no matter what you do for a living, in your heart are you an E, an S, a B or an I? (Key: E=employee; B=big business owner; S=self-employed, specialist or small business owner; I=investor.) But Trump and Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) together are a strangely winning combination (they've published this book jointly and privately—and a portion of its profits will be donated to charity). Bottom line: these Messrs. Money-bags know their business. We're talking billionaires here, and really, how can you argue with success?

Since its first publication in 1994, Winning Low-Limit Hold'em, by Lee Jones, has become the major reference on playing Texas Hold'em at the lower limits. However, poker has changed over the several years and Lee has continued to study the game. The result is this revised and expanded second edition.

If you play low-limit Hold’em, or would like to learn to play Hold’em, this book is for you. It won’t teach you a lot of advanced poker theory, but it will give you a solid foundation with which you can be a winner at low-limit Hold’em.

Read this book, study it carefully, and be disciplined: you’ll be able to beat any 1-4, 3-6, or 1-4-8-8 Hold’em game you join.

This book provides a complete approach to the economics of financing medicines and policy implications for the efficiency and equity of health systems. In all health systems with majority public financing, pharmaceutical reimbursement is one of the key factors in policies of change and transformation of health services in order to face the future with guarantees of financial sustainability.

The initial chapters seek to answer questions about the efficiency with which the public sector intervenes in the pharmaceutical industry: Is the present system of drug patents efficient and fair? What would be the best way to control drug prices? Is it possible to encourage competition in this market for the patient’s benefit? The remainder of the book provides evidence on the impact of instruments and policies aimed at rationalizing and controlling pharmaceutical expenditure: What can we expect from the application of reference pricing systems? When, how and where should the user be made to share the cost of medicines? What economic and non-economic incentives should be applied to drug prescription?

Jaume Puig-Junoy has performed an invaluable task in creating a cohesive, and analytically rigorous book of specially commissioned chapters on this pertinent topic.

The Public Financing of Pharmaceuticals will appeal to academics and researchers involved in public finance, health policy, health economics, industrial organization and the pharmaceutical markets in Europe and in the US, where there is increasing public interest in drug coverage. The book is also intended for a wide variety of professionals in the health industries and policymakers.