How to Spot Financial Fraud. MSN Money highlights indicators that should be observed which may help spot firms with accounting fallacies.

Spotting accounting fiddles isn’t easy. After all, if the auditors are taken in, how can we do any better?

Well, you can learn how to spot the danger signs. While accountants have their nose to the numbers, investors can stand a little further back and take a different view. If, for example, a company appears to be doing fantastically well compared with the industry it operates in, if it is led by a charismatic chief executive, if its business is too complex to be easily understood, and if it has a history of frantic acquisition (especially funded by shares), then many of your alarm bells should be ringing.