Learn to Earn: ET Prime Special Series - Part 1 - Understanding what the auditors are trying to tell you as an investor

A key difference between institutional and retail investors is that the former study annual reports and the finer points in those documents, while the latter ignores them. Now, Indian annual reports are complex documents, literally Greek to many, and so most people do not read them. Some parts are so technical that even the best of investors cannot read them. One such is what the auditor is saying about a company. Why is this important? Because what the auditor says, often buried under piles of data points, provides clues about the quality of the company, the processes it follows, whether it is trying to hide anything. In this series, we will try to make things like this as simple as possible. If you are seriously interested in knowing about companies and the stock market, then read on.