The Portable Financial Analyst: What Practioners Need to Know

The Portable Financial Analyst is a unique collection of essays that addresses the heart of every investors and analysts dilemma: how to make decisions in the face of unknown forces and how to assert some control over the outcome. Originally published in The Financial Analysts Journal, these self-contained articles address often controversial and difficult quantitative topics without the technical jargon and mathematical symbolism that often permeates other writings. With a rare degree of lucidity and impeccable logic, Mark Kritzman shows investors how to employ the tools of mathematics, statistics, and common sense when evaluating past results and projecting future performance.

"Risk is an inescapable feature of investing, and risk, more than anything else, is what this fine book is all about."
–Peter L. Bernstein

Praise for this Second Edition

"For those looking for a serious introduction to the concepts and tools of quantitative financial analysis, this is a great book. The focus is economics and statistics as applied to financial markets. Though the topics are technical, the author’s wit and good sense of humor are evident throughout."
–Bob Litterman, head of the Quantitative Resources Group, Goldman Sachs Asset Management

"This book is an essential resource for the thoughtful practitioner and serious student of finance. Kritzman straightforwardly introduces the reader to tools and concepts of huge significance in finance and investment management today. Neither brain candy nor mental steroids, this book is solid intellectual protein. Buy it. Study it. Bulk up."
–Robert F. Bruner, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Executive Director of the Batten Institute, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia

"This is a wonderful collection of wide-ranging essays on financial analysis written by a preeminent practitioner in a remarkably lucid style . . . don’t leave home without it!"
–Andrew W. Lo, Harris & Harris Group Professor, MIT Sloan School

Praise for the First Edition

"In one book, Mark Kritzman covers the key tools of modern investment practice. Clear, concise, and always to the point, the treatment is succinct but never superficial. This valuable volume should be included in the library of every serious investor."
–Dr. William F. Sharpe, Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University and Nobel Prize Laureate, 1990, Economic Sciences

"Mark Kritzman makes the recondite transparent, the technical accessible, and the horrendously complex elegantly simple. Keep this book close at hand and you won’t have to figure out these difficult issues again (and again and again)."
–Jack R. Meyer, President and CEO, Harvard Management Company, Inc.