Still Today I remember, I was doing a BBA from Brihan Maharashtra College of commerce and our teacher told us to came up with an annual report. Many of my classmates came up with a Balance sheet, which is one part of the annual report. I was only one who was aware in full class the limitations of Balance sheet and Profit and loss account ( Or income statement which is a better name for it.

I was lucky enough to saw the Balance sheet of many companies but the factor I realized that The number next to section RESERVES AND SURPLUS is not giving enough information. I was aware that management plays an important role because what any CEO or CFO says, people listen. So even if a Balance sheet of the bank said that Non-Performing assets are 5% But if management said that out of that 20% may recover then that is important. But This will never come on the balance sheet.

My colleague Sanjay Mantri was my source for all this treasure. As a broker, many companies sending Annual reports to him. Sometimes if doing Buy-sell transactions, if some share is on his broker account, it will be him, who received. For his office, it was something to through into dustbin. But for me, it was a treasure. I don’t even remember how many things I learned in his office.

I need to mention one incidence here. It is not about an annual report but still, it shows me how stock work.

One share named sonata software was on an upward move. The share price was increasing but there was no news. Nothing was visible. It was our daily habit to go for evening tea around 3;30 PM. That day due to other reasons we leave early. He realized that he received some posts. We Open it and it was about one notice FROM SONATA SOFTWARE. I don’t remember what was the subject but it was good for shareholders so Share price was going up.

Investing in a share of the company is beyond doubt full of risk. But the risk will increase when you don’t know what you are doing. I am sure, Common man cant track the Baltic dry index so Tracking the daily movement of the Shipping corp share is difficult. But After reading the annual report of shipping corp, it is easy to decide. I know that not everyone thinks in this way and that is right.

I am talking about the Indian annual report. In the USA, They have a form 10-k. It gives much more important information than then Annual report. In fact, some companies differently published annual reports as Form 10-k is a little bit boring.

A Form 10-K is an annual report required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, very much similar to SEBI in India), that gives a comprehensive summary of a company’s financial performance. Although similarly named, the annual report on Form 10-K is distinct from the often glossy “annual report to shareholders,” which a company must send to its shareholders when it holds an annual meeting to elect directors (though some companies combine the annual report and the 10-K into one document). The 10-K includes information such as company history, organizational structure, compensation of executive, equity, subsidiaries, and audited financial statements, among other information. Wikipedia or any other source can give you good information about it. Best Thing is There is a system called EDGAR, the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. Where companies can put their reports. In India, we don’t have any such system and so analysts like me need to go to the website of the company and anyone who handles them knows how difficult it is.

There are some parts of the annual report. In the next few days, I am going to write in detail about them. Largely I will write about the comparison of 10-k and Annual reports.