Investing Between the Lines (PB): How to Make Smarter Decisions by Decoding Ceo Communications Paperback – Import, 20 June 2023

Good one time read. One must take notes on How to read annual reports. You must trust yourself that you can do better than any analyst.

This book covers a very different subject of decoding the CEO communication by investors, in great detail. There is a wealth of information about the company in CEO's letter to shareholders. The CEO's can be truthful and candid in their communication with shareholders. They can reveal information that matters about performance of the company as well as the way forward. The author who was an investment banker, developed a framework called as Rittenhouse Rating System based on important attributes of CEO shareholder letters. These include integrity and values, sustainable business, capital stewardship, candor, strategy, leadership, vision, accountability and authenticity. The model is based on point system- positive points as well as negative points for the contents in CEO shareholder letters. There are ample examples of actual CEO letters from leading US companies explaining the concept and point system. The companies who score high on a consistent basis have given superior shareholder returns. The two best examples are CEO letters from Enron and from Amazon. The letters from Enron could have alerted investors well in advance, if they had read the letter every year. The CEO letters from Jeff Bezos of Amazon would have helped investors to understand how the company was progressing on their long term strategy. The book will be of great help to investors in equities as well as to analysts, business executives and academics. This will provide a different perspective to readers while reading Annual Reports and CEO letters in particular.

well written book

Great book, it helps you understand ceo communications better. What would have been helpful is better articulation of rating process and what should an individual investors cut off be.