Financial Shenanigans, Fourth Edition: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports, 4th Edition

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The Forensic Mindset

In the quarter-century since publishing the first edition of Financial Shenanigans, we have identified many accounting tricks hidden in corporate filings and shared our analysis with thousands of professionals and students. In discussing our findings (and what led us to them), we often are asked how we spotted these shenanigans when others, evaluating the same documents, failed to see them. Is it that we work so much harder or are more clever than other analysts? We think not. Rather, we believe our success stems from starting with a very different mindset—a forensic one. This approach incorporates qualities of skepticism, curiosity, and humility and mixes them with a deep understanding of human behavior and principles ...