Last night the Pittsburgh Society held their annual meeting and new Charterholder award ceremony. I’m a recent transplant to Pittsburgh, so I am actually a NYSSA (New York) society member. But thanks to fellow-AF’er mwvt99, I was able to get myself invited. The President of the Pittsburgh society and their admin went out of their way to accommodate me and even had the CFAI send my charter here to Pittsburgh so I could fully participate! (If I had any doubts about switching to this society, or maintaining two local memberships, they were pretty much erased when they made that effort – thanks, guys). The whole “meeting” part was more interesting than I would have expected. In the case of the Pittsburgh Society, they are definitely ramping up and trying to increase their visibility and their utility to members. For instance, Pittsburgh will be hosting a BSAS mock for Level I this year. If there are any candidates out there in the Pittsburgh area who haven’t joined, I would strongly encourage you to do so – most especially if your company will reimburse you, but even if they won’t. It will make attaining the charter that much sweeter if you are already known to the local (and you can avoid a lot of the pain others have experienced here trying to get membership AFTER they pass). Turns out that my timing of coming to this local society this year could not have been better — this was the first year they actually did a presentation ceremony for new Charterholders! OK… there’s really not much more to it than 8 people getting a handshake and a big old slab of paper. But it was still a very nice thing to have at the end of this long and arduous process. Here’s the highlight part… CFAI apparently was so impressed that Pittsburgh was hosting it’s first Charter presentation ceremony that the head of examinations from CFAI, Peter Mackey, personally gave out the charters! Pretty cool, huh? It felt like meeting some sort of Russian grandmaster that I had been playing chess with online for the past three years. I mean… this is the one person more than any other who determines the content, wording and difficulty of these exams (I know it’s very much a collaborative process, but he is in charge). Just for kicks, I did ask him about that one question from this year’s Level III AM that most of us got < 50% on — (was it a WACC question?) – he pretty quickly knew the question I was talking about and simply said, “That was taken into account.” Nice response. plyon, CFA
Meeting Mackey was like standing face to face with the grim reaper. He seemed to like the fact that his pass rates were declining each year as he made mention of it several times. In fact, for those taking the exam this year he did say to me “congratulation on passing L3 this year, it was the lowest pass rate ever…SO FAR”. I asked him if that was a hint of things to come. He didn’t say yes or no. After a few drinks I told him I pwned his exams (fiction). In reality he was a really nice guy.
Plyon - What do you think about Stamford society? I remember you used to live in CT before moving to PA. I am thinking about joining Stamford society after L3 instead of NYSSA as I live in CT.
We had a less formalized cocktail reception at our Cincinnati chapter. The special guest was John Rogers, President and CEO of CFA Institute. Not kidding. He was very down to earth, and I enjoyed talking to him. He too referenced the low pass rates. The other thing I asked him was about CFAI’s influence on policy in Washington which he told me there are a couple full time Institute members who are employed for that very purpose. Unfortunately CFAI doesn’t lobby, so the amount of influence is probably minimal. They didn’t have our charters available yet so he and our society president presented us with ceremonial bottles of wine.
Good stuff plyon. We don’t have the ceremony until December.
pupdawg82 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Plyon - What do you think about Stamford society? > I remember you used to live in CT before moving to > PA. > > I am thinking about joining Stamford society after > L3 instead of NYSSA as I live in CT. A close friend of mine is past president of the Stamford society, but that’s about all I know about it. I did not join there. I like having the NYSSA on the resume because it does basically signal that I am from NY (like it or not, I think that helps in the financial world). But in meeting the local society last night, I would really consider joining a (smaller) society where I could make a difference and make some real friends.
“because it does basically signal that I am from NY” - agree also NYSSA has more benefits than Stamford society. I was thinking about Stamford soceity because it may have connection with PE/HF firms from fairfield county. Thanks
Congrats on the charterholder! Can’t wait till the day… Cheers.
> Just for kicks, I > did ask him about that one question from this > year’s Level III AM that most of us got < 50% on > — (was it a WACC question?) – he pretty quickly > knew the question I was talking about and simply > said, “That was taken into account.” Nice > response. > > plyon, CFA Sorry, I don’t understand the answer “That was taken into account”. Does he mean that it counts just like the rest of the questions or that it doesn’t count and everybody/nobody gets credit ???
Bacaladitos Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Sorry, I don’t understand the answer “That was > taken into account”. > Does he mean that it counts just like the rest of > the questions or that it doesn’t count and > everybody/nobody gets credit ??? Who knows? That’s exactly why it’s a great answer. Makes you feel better but gives away nothing.
Wasn’t that the implied assets / implied liabilities question? That’s what I assumed since I was pretty sure I got the WACC question right and the implied asset question wrong.
the response of “That was taken into account” to me means, “that was a bullshit question”
what’s up guys… haven’t been here in a while. good to see everyone’s doing well. i’m in sf and haven’t received an invite for the ceremony here or received my charter in the mail. however, i did receive a nice notebook yesterday with fancy covers that says cfa on it. i would have taken those tests just for the notebook. but seriously, anyone not hear anything yet?
What up cfasf. How is life as a CFA charterholder? I’ll have my 48 months on Monday, so I can finally wrap this thing up.
Mcleod! How’s it going? Things are pretty good over here. Just got back from Hawaii. So glad I didn’t have to read GIPS while I was there. They should just give you the charter already. You killed that thing. Interesting game over there this sunday by the way, you’re going right? Career wise, having the charter actually does give you some instant credibility. (deserved or not) It’s been helpful. I still haven’t received my charter though. Maybe they revoked it once they found out what a clown I am.
Aaaaahhh. I miss the old cfasf1 self deprecation…
This guy passes all CFA exams the first time while helping many others in the process and still tells himself he is a clown. Cool to see the ‘gang’ hang out here once in a while. We should still get drunk together.
just like the good ole days! good to see all of you guys.
Word. Ok guys you can all hate me for being a lurker, but whatever. I followed all you dudes through from the beginning (Dec 07, Jun 08, Jun 09) and now i’m done. Problem is, I’m having CFA withdrawls. I need to become more social for work (do more BD/networking) but the CFA process really f’ed me up and made me all introverted. I love gold and apartment complex investments by the way. and I think everything in institutional investing is a scam. Background - former BB analyst doing M&A, then a MM bank doing sell side, now have my own gig. Ok now I have a reason to keep coming back, because I check this god forsaken site everyday, and for absolutely no good reason.
For those of you who went to the award ceremony - did any of you bring your spouse?