Fundamental analysis is an essential, core skill in an investor's tool-kit for evaluating a company on the basis of its track record: sales, earnings, dividends, products, management, etc., as well as the economic and industry outlook. It is a value-based approach to stock market investing — solid and prudent — that typically offers handsome profits to the long-term investor.

Raghu Palat's book will help you master the essentials of fundamental analysis. It clearly explains, with illustrations, all the analytical tools of economic, industry and company analysis, including ratios and cash flow. It shows you how to judge a company's management and its products, and discover what actually lies behind the figures and notes in a company's annual report. And, how to calculate the intrinsic value of a share.

Fundamental analysis will help you base your investment decisions on relevant information, not tips, hunches or assumptions. Doing that will help you make solid, consistent long-term profits. Legendary modern day investors like Warren Buffet and Peter Lynch used basically this approach to amass fortunes on the stock market. So can you.

Raghu Palat is an acknowledged authority on investment, finance and banking and has written more than thirty extremely well received books on these subjects.

A great grandson of His Highness, the late Rama Varma, Maharaja of Cochin, and Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, a member of the Viceroy’s Privy Council and a former President of the Indian National Congress, Raghu Palat is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales.

A career banker he has held very senior positions with multinational banks in India and abroad. He has worked in Europe, America, Asia and Africa.

Raghu Palat is presently a banking consultant. He also manages a dedicated finance portal www.banking- rules.com which is a repertoire of rules and regulations relating to finance, commerce, corporates and banks. In addition, he conducts workshops on business etiquette, effective business writing, presentation skills, banking and finance.

Mr. Palat has also set up a portal for e-learning www.ibbc.co.in. The courses are an amalgam of laws, directives and actual real life situations.

Raghu Palat lives in Mumbai with his wife Pushpa.