22.1. Basic Questions and Answers22.1.1. Are financial reports reliable and trustworthy?22.1.2. Nevertheless, are some financial statements misleading and fraudulent?22.1.3. Is it worth your time to compute financial statement ratios?22.1.4. Why read financial statements, then, if you won't find information that has been overlooked by others?22.1.5. The financial statements and footnotes of large public companies would take several hours to read carefully. What's the alternative?22.1.6. Is there any one basic litmus test for a quick gauge of a company's financial performance?22.1.7. Do financial statements report the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?22.1.8. Does its financial report explain the basic profit-making strategy of the business?22.1.9. Does the market price of a public company's stock shares depend directly and only on the information reported in its financial statements?22.1.10. Does the balance sheet of a private business tell the market value of the business?22.1.11. Do books on investing and personal finance refer to financial statements?22.2. A Very Short Summary