Microsoft Excel Data Analysis and Business Modeling

When I just started my career as a financial analyst, a project manager gave me a pile of condensed training materials which included the excel functions that I would be using most frequently. I bought this Data Analysis & Modeling book 2-3 weeks after my first day of work and I found many of those taught in the book aligned with those on the training materials from my manager. The book has been very useful to me as it has a lot of cases to demonstrate how those functions can be applied. This book is a book teaching MS Excel, but shaped in a way that focuses more on functions that are useful to financial analysis. It won't make you a financial expert after reading the book -- you need to know the financial concepts like fixed / variable cost, NPV & IRR, stocks & options first, then the tools introduced in the book will help you organize, calculate or present your data. Pros: - Clear step by step explanation - Lots of examples & Exercises included in CD.

I'll start by saying I'm biased: I believe Excel 2007 is awesome. So, this book is a great reference for how to get more out of a great tool. I've been to Wayne's seminars, adn his book is a great substitute for his classroom knowledge and experience. THe examples are highly practical, and his data samples on the included CD make learning how to use the functions a lot easier. Love the basketball and baseball stat examples!

I am an intermediate Excel user. I was looking for a book that could be used as a quick reference. This book is the best book I have ever read. I learned a great deal about hidden capabilities of Microsoft Excel. If you work with excel a lot, especially for analyzing data, this is the book for you. Every chapter introduces a new excel technique. Explanations are straight forward and easy to understand. Included CD has all the examples, both solved and unsolved. I analyze a lot of data in my job everyday. Techniques I learned from this book help me everyday in getting my work done faster.

This book is aimed at a level slightly higher than the total beginner. On page one, for instance he assumes that you understand the statement SUM(A5000:A5049) means. Then he points out that writing SUM(USSales) would make it easier to understand. He then describes how to name a range of cells -- Not exactly what I'd call advanced, but certainly above novice. The first third, or so, of the book is on these kinds of slightly advanced procedures that you could get out of several Excell books. After that he kind of turns the approach around to things like "Estimating a Demand Curve." This is looking for what you want to do rather than just looking at a technique within Excell. Many of his chapters have fairly sophisticated subjects, "Incorporating Qualitative Factors into Multiple Regression." In this chapter he then looks at multiple factors that might go into predicting things like predicting sales, predicting the Presidential race - with fairly surprising results. In a couple of chapters he has a bit of fun, i.e. Chapter 73 is "Picking Your Fantasy Football Team." Excell is quite a powerful package. It can be used for a lot of things beyond just filling out an expense account. In this book a lot of non traditional uses are described in a very light but informative manner. It is a very well done book.

I love this book. This Book is a must for anyone who wants to learn how to use Excel to perform Data Analysis and Business modeling. I learned alot from this book. Winston shows us how to use Excel functions and shows us with examples. Plenty of examples and answers provided with the CD. This is a very good "foundational" book. You should also check out the book by Jackson and Staunton "Advanced modeling in finance using Excel and VBA". A book by Sengupta "Financial Modeling using Excel and VBA" is also worth looking at. I own all 3 books