Updated and revised, the 'Numbers Guide' is an invaluable source for everyone in business who wants to be competent and able to communicate effectively with numbers.

Designed as a companion to The Economist Style Guide, the best-selling guide to writing style, The Economist Numbers Guide is invaluable to anyone who wants to be competent and able to communicate effectively with numbers. In addition to general advice on basic numeracy, the guide points out common errors and explains the recognized techniques for solving financial problems, analysing information of any kind, and effective decision making. Over one hundred charts, graphs, tables, and feature boxes highlight key points. Also included is an A–Z dictionary of terms covering everything from amortization to zero-sum game. Whatever your business, The Economist Numbers Guide will prove invaluable.

The revised and updated 7th edition of this highly regarded book brings the reader right up to speed with the latest financial market developments, and provides a clear and incisive guide to a complex world that even those who work in it often find hard to understand. In chapters on the markets that deal with money, foreign exchange, equities, bonds, commodities, financial futures, options and other derivatives, the book examines why these markets exist, how they work, and who trades in them, and gives a run-down of the factors that affect prices and rates. Business history is littered with disasters that occurred because people involved their firms with financial instruments they didn't properly understand. If they had had this book they might have avoided their mistakes. For anyone wishing to understand financial markets, there is no better guide.

A practical and accessible overview of the fundamentals of business finance -- now in its third edition. Managers are constantly expected to make decisions that reflect a full understanding of the financial consequences. In the absence of formal training, few people are prepared for the responsibilities of dealing with management reports, budgets, and capital proposals, and find themselves embarrassed by their lack of understanding. This book is a practical guide to understanding and managing financial responsibilities. Each chapter examines actual tasks managers have to do, from "how to assemble a budget," "how to read variances on a report," to "how to construct a proposal to invest in new equipment," exploring the principles that can be applied to each task, illustrating practical ways these principles are used, and providing guidance for implementation. Guide to Financial Management will help readers understand financial jargon, financial statements, management accounts, performance measures, budgeting, costing, pricing, decision-making, and investment appraisal. This third edition has been fully revised and expanded with detailed examples from 100 leading businesses around the world.

In today's volatile, complex and fast-moving business world, it can be difficult to gauge how sound a company really is. An apparently strong balance sheet and impressive reported profits may be hiding all sorts of problems that could even spell bankruptcy. So how do you: Know whether a company is well run and doing well? Decide which ratios and benchmarks to use to assess performance? Work out if a company has massaged its results? Recognise the danger signs on the corporate horizon? Compare companies operating in different sectors or countries? These and many other important questions are answered in a completely updated and revised sixth edition of this clear and comprehensive guide. It is aimed at anyone who wants to understand a company's annual report, judge a customer's creditworthiness, assess a company's investment potential, and much more.

A view of how the countries of the world compare on everything from economic strength to energy consumption, industrial output to inflation, export trends to education standards, freezer ownership to financial institutions, CCF emissions to the cost of living and meat production to murder rates.

Designed as a companion to The Economist Style Guide, the best-selling guide to writing style, The Economist Numbers Guide is invaluable for everyone who has to work with numbers, which in today's commercially focussed world means most managers. In addition to general advice on basic numeracy, the guide points out common errors and explains the recognised techniques for solving financial problems, analysing information of any kind, forecasting and effective decision making. Over 100 charts, graphs, tables and feature boxes highlight key points, and great emphasis is put on the all-important aspect of how you present and communicate numerical information effectively and honestly. At the back of the book is an extensive A-Z dictionary of terms covering everything from amortisation to zero-sum game. Whatever your business, whatever your management role, for anyone who needs a good head for figures The Economist Numbers Guide will prove invaluable.