Prologue : owner-related business principles
I. Corporate governance
Full and fair disclosure
Boards and mangers
The anxieties of business change
Social compacts
An owner-based approach to corporate charity
A principled approach to executive pay
Risk, reputation and oversight
II. Finance and investing
Mr. Market
Arbitrage
Debunking standard dogma
"Value" investing : a redundancy
Intelligent investing
Cigar butts and the institutional imperative
Life and debt
III. Investment alternatives
Surveying the field
Junk bonds
Zero-coupon bonds
Preferred stock
Derivatives
Foreign currencies and equities
Home ownership : practice and policy
IV. Common stock
The bane of trading : transaction costs
Attracting the right sort of investor
Dividend policy and share repurchases
Stock splits and trading activity
Shareholder strategies
Berkshire's recapitalization
V. Mergers and acquisitions
Bad motives and high prices
Sensible share repurchases versus greenmail
Leveraged buyouts
Sound acquisition policies
On selling one's business
The buyer of choice
VI. Valuation and accounting
Aesop and inefficient Bush theory
Intrinsic value, book value, and market price
Look-through earnings
Economic versus accounting goodwill
Owner earnings and the cash flow fallacy
Option valuation
VII. Accounting shenanigans
Satire
Standard setting
Stock options
"Restructuring" changes
Pension estimates
Realization events
VIII. Accounting policy
Mergers
Segment data and consolidation
Deferred taxes
Retiree benefits
IX. Tax matters
Distribution of the corporate tax burden
Taxation and investment philosophy.