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 | | Financial Markets & Corporate Strategy by Mark Grinblatt, Sheridan Titman ISBN-10: 9780072294330 ISBN-10: 0-07-229433-7 ISBN-13: 9780072294330 ISBN-13: 978-0-07-229433-0 Hardcover 2001-10-16 McGraw-Hill/Irwin Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description The authors began writing the First Edition of this textbook in early 1988. It took almost 10 years to complete this effort, because they did not want to write an ordinary textbook. Their goal was to write a book that would break new ground in both the understanding and explanation of finance and its practice. They wanted to write a book that would influence the way people think about, teach, and practice finance. A book that would elevate the level of discussion and analysis in the classroom, in the corporate boardroom, and in the conference rooms of Wall Street firms. They wanted a book that would sit on the shelves of financial executives as a useful reference manual, long after the executives had studied and received a degree. They were successful in their endeavor. The success of the first edition of Financial Markets and Corporate Strategy was very heartening. The market for this text has expanded every year, and it is well-known as the cutting edge textbook in corporate finance around the world. The book is used in a variety of courses, both for introductory courses and advanced electives. Some schools have even changed their curriculum to design it around this text. The authors have developed this Second Edition based on the comments of many reviewers and colleagues; producing what is a more reader-friendly book. The most consistent comment from users of the first edition was a request for a chapter on the key ingredients of valuation: accounting, cash flows, and basic discounting. This ultimately led to a new chapter in the text, Chapter 9, which is currently available in the "Sample Chapter" section of the book's website. In almost every chapter, examples are updated, vignettes changed, numbers modified, statements checked for currency and historical accuracy, and exercises and examples are either modified or added to. The goal of the Second Edition is to make the book ever more practical, pedagogically effective, and current. | ||
Reviews | ||
Good for shelf reference, bad for class I bought this for a corporate financial policy at the Ross School of Business (Michigan). I read through the assigned chapters during the first couple of classes, but a lot of it was directly overlapping what we talked about in class. It is a good book with easy to understand explanations. If the choice was to use it as a shelf reference it is definitely a buy. I know I will use it after I graduate at my next job. However, if the purpose is just to read it for class and you have a good professor or strong grasp on the material, it is just extra money down the drain. | ||
Complete Waste of Time I rarely write reviews, but feel compelled to do so with this book so that I might prevent other people from wasting their time as I have. A lot of people have criticised this book for its lack of more sophisticated material. Putting that aside, the book is very poor on the things it does cover. This book is written in a very confusing style. There is no didactic elegance and it is hard to acquire a clear understanding of the subject matter. The writers seem to assume that their readers have no understanding of statistics. Consequently, they present results without proofs or even solid mathematical intution. The net result is that the reader is left utterly confused. Regardless of your grasp of maths, this book will leave you confused. Stay away. | ||
Unnecessarily Complex Author devotes 2 pages to mathematically prove & philosophically justify that a manager should chose the highest NPV project before chosing the next highest NPV project. Such logic continues ad infinitum throughout the 800+ page text. Time for 3rd Ed. | ||
A finance textbook full of errors and holes I am a postgraduate student in finance and this book is on my reading list for corporate finance. I must say that I am not very pleased with this book. First, it seems to skip around from chapter to chapter with no real logical organizational structure. Second, it is full of typos and mistakes -- some that are quite dangerous for a proper understanding of the material. Third, it does not develop fully the statistically techniques in Chapter 4 that it builds on in later chapters. This is a major problem in my opinion. What saves this book from the lowest rating is that it does discuss empirical studies and journal articles, and it does not do an entirely awful job about the more qualitative subjects like adverse selection and capitalization policy. For what it's worth, I received my undergraduate degree at Wharton and am now at the London School of Economics. Instead of this book, I recommend Brealey and Myer's Principles of Corporate Finance. This is what I used as an undergraduate and is what seems to be the de facto textbook in the top undergraduate and MBA programs. N. | ||
A Wonderful Approach to Corporate Finance I will admit this book does not take the standard approach to learning corporate finance. The authors discuss a wide variety of common topics, ranging from market models, option valuation, capital structure concepts and decisions, to more specialized topics such as corporate governance and financial risk management. What is unique about this book, though, is that the authors encourage students to think about problems more broadly than one often sees in introductory texts and courses. For example, the authors encourage the use of decision trees (i.e. binomial models) to value a wide range of assets, not just stocks. If one can value a stock option using a binomial tree, why not use the same framework to value a plot of undeveloped real estate, an untapped mine, or any other "real option" owned by a company? Another reason this text is excellent is because the authors include a vast survey of recent financial and economic literature relevant for the financial decision-maker. Highly developed markets depend on the signaling of information between investors and management, creditors and debtors, customers and suppliers, and so forth; understanding the implications of these interactions and their subsequent effects is of primary importance to decision-makers. For example, the "pecking order" theory of capital structure is one of the most well-known concepts in finance, but nonetheless often misunderstood (if you want proof of this, why did investors respond so enthusiastically to every IPO in the late 1990's?). Instead of glossing over an explanation of the theory, the book thorougly explains it and provides problems where the reader can actually work through a simplified model that really reinforces the concept. While this book served as a good introduction to a wide scope of problems in finance, it was most useful because it helped me to apply economic tools not just to solve but to understand financial problems. The use of decision trees in the simplified, binomial model setting helped me to understand option/project valuation and risk-netural valuation, the linchpin of no-arbitrage pricing. It also has perhaps the most thorough, lucid explanation of Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) I've seen anywhere- for a practitioner trying to understand factor models, this chapter alone makes the book worth it. I understand that this is a very difficult book and that the problems are beyond what one may expect in a MBA-level course. Nonetheless, finance is an increasingly competitive field whose employers are starting to demand more analytical skills and intiution from recent graduates. In response to the reviewer who said this text is not suitable for CFA preparation, I do agree with that sentiment. First, the CFA program is designed for self-study that any motivated and capable professional can handle, while Grinblatt/Titman is clearly appropriate for a rigorous MBA-level sequence in corporate finance. Second, the CFA exam emphasizes asset valuation and portfolio management, while this book stresses financial decision-making from a manager's standpoint. While I normally don't like reviews that justify their opinions by offering credentials, I also work on Wall Street and I find the concepts taught in this book to be quite relevant in handling real-world problems. | ||