The guiding question of this course is: How can we use accounting information to make good decisions in capital markets? We will discuss the economic role of accrual accounting, see how to "read" a firm's financial statements, familiarize ourselves with key financial ratios, explore the accounting for selected financial statement position items that may be particularly prone to measurement error, derive a model to forecast a firm's future activities and learn a valuation model that explicitly anchors on accounting information.