Why Stocks Go Up and Down, 4E Paperback – September 11, 2013

You’ll have better clarity on the book’s content with prior knowledge of value investing. It can be quite dry for beginners. I first read it in 2016 and found it easy to fall asleep while reading. Now, after five years of equity investing, I appreciate the content much more.

This book educates its readers on fundamental analysis of stocks. It’s a great book for any non-professional analyst who wants to pick his/her own stocks.The book broadly has three sections:1. It uses the example of a small business to explain how financial statements are constructed and how capital flows in and out of the business.2. It dives deeper into various types of funding available to businesses and explains the various types of securities that an analyst might encounter on the balance sheet.3. It uses the example of an actual company and shows how the concepts taught in the previous sections tie together to create an investment case for the company.Overall, I would say this book deserves a place on the same shelf as other investment classics such as Security Analysis, The Intelligent Investor, Common Stocks Uncommon Profits, and One Up On Wall Street. Highly recommend it!

This is a great book for anyone who wants to learn not only why stock prices fluctuate but how businesses are structured. My only criticism has nothing to do with the material itself, but that there are quite a few grammatical errors throughout the book.

There is A LOT of information in this book. This is a great place to start for anyone thinking they might like to go to school in Business/Finance/Accounting. It doesn't cover theory on stock prices, but rather the actual calculation of stock and bond prices. In other words it's not a book for those attempting to make it rich in the stock market, but rather one to help understand how a business works, and what goes into deciding whether the price of a stock or bond is over/undervalued. I enjoy having it as a reference guide for calculating ratios, even though it's probably quicker to simply google them. Still, it's one of those books that has so much useful information that it's worth having on your shelf.

This book is an academic reading on the creation of stocks. Stock buying decision making is left up to the reader.

I have been investing for over 10 years and read a number of investment books. When I got this book I was both skeptical and intrigued by the subtitle, "The Book You Need To Understand Other Investment Books", but after going through it, I can understand why the authors call it that. A lot of investment fundamentals are covered in depth that other books assume you know already.Positives: 1. Good introduction to balance sheets and income statements without taking an accounting course. Numerical examples and calculation are well laid out and easy to follow. 2. Good discussion of cash flow and how it is used by investment analysts. 3. The last chapter is a case study of Abbott Labs. I found it really helpful in understanding what an investment analyst does.Strongly recommended!

This book will get you started in understanding stocks and bonds, but you will also find yourself referring back to it again and again as your knowledge expands through further study. The authors introduce the most basic concepts and develop them right up through the point of making an investment decision. Their coverage of the topic is encyclopedic, so their book can fill in gaps even for experienced investors.Pike and Gregory contend that this book will enable you to understand other investment books. I can affirm that it provides the necessary foundation for reading my own book, Financial Statement Analysis: A Practitioner's Guide (co-authored with Fernando Alvarez), which focuses on the accounting tricks that companies use to mislead investors. One thing is for sure: You should not venture into the deep water of the securities markets without the knowledge masterfully presented in Why Stocks Go Up and Down.