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What's Behind the Numbers: Learn Red Flags, Avoid Blowups

Author Tom Jacobs shows you how to identify financial shenanigans and profit from poor accounting.

By Tom Jacobs and Rick Engdahl – Mar 27, 2013 at 1:30PM EST

As an investor, it's essential to sort out the good companies from the bad, and the clues you'll need are in the financials. Join author Tom Jacobs as he raises the red flags of financial chicanery. Avoid and even profit from companies committing scandalous accounting.

Check out the rest of the videos in this series:

Red Flag 1: Too Much Inventory, Writedown Ahead?
Red Flag 2: Are Stock Options Making the Cash Flow Fake?
Red Flag 3: Serial Acquisitions: Apples to Oranges
Slay Your Fear of Shorting: Use Put Options to Know Your Risk
Red Flag 4: Collecting the Revenue: Too Many Days' Sales Outstanding?
All Red Flags Waving!

Read Next

About the Author

Tom Jacobs
Tom Jacobs is the Lead Advisor for Motley Fool Special Ops, a premium investment service specializing in event-driven value situations such as spinoffs. He is the co-author of What's Behind the Numbers? A Guide to Exposing Financial Chicanery and Avoiding Huge Losses in Your Portfolio (McGraw-Hill), rated the best investment book of the year by Stock Trader's Almanac . Influenced by parents educated and working in the Great Depression, he demands a margin of safety from stocks and always has a small part of his portfolio hedged to survive the outlier events (aka, Big Ones). A Fool since 1999, Tom firmly believes that dogs are people with fur.
TMFTomJacobs

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