I’ve been seriously considering doing the acturial exams (up to/inclusive of exam C - i.e, finishing ASA). I currently work in fixed income and have no plans of practicing as an actuary. However, I’ve talked at a very high level with my group and the concensus seems to be supportive of it.
My question is, for someone who’s been out of calculus for a while and didn’t study actuarial science in school, are there adequate study resources available to get through it? I’ve been looking at the Infinite Actuary and it seems to rank on par with Schweser in the actuarial community.
I guess nobody in this thread knows that there are plenty of actuaries working in investment management, and that investment management is a potential field of study while becoming an actuary. A lot of people with CFA and ASA/FSA make great money.
What do you do in fixed income? If you are doing customized portfolios for insurance, or DB plans and HWTs and need to understand the specific details of these liabilities, then maybe you should take the exams. Especially if you’re working for an insurance company or a mega retirement plan. Alternatively, if you’re the only actuary at your IM firm, the specialized knowledge might be valued enough to warrant the effort.
I work with a lot of DB and insurance clients, and while there is an actuary on our team, I wouldn’t say that level of knowledge is necessary to manage the money appropriately. You need to be able to understand actuarial reports, what affects them, and how that impacts the investment strategy. You can learn those things without taking the exams.
The exams are very difficult. Harder than CFA. If you decide to take the exams, go take an advanced math class on Coursera and see how you do before you pay money for study guides. Another thing to keep in mind is that some people hear “actuary” and immediately think you’re a math geek with no people skills.
Well, I was speaking from a UK point of view. if you already have CFA, Actuarial exams will not help you in fixed Income. People here only do both exams if they want to switch from one career path to the other.
If you’re in the pension space (or managing a fixed income protfolio for a life insurance company), the CFA/Actuary combination sells pretty well. I knew two who did exactly that. But then, I grew up near Hartford, where everybody and their brother is associated with the insurance industry.
I see and hear a lot of actuaries/actuarial students go for CFA (for fun, to earn more three-letter titles, can’t find better things to do after done with actuarial exams, etc. etc.), but never heard of the reverse route. That’s just too crazy!! I am a qualified actuary myself and know what it takes to earn the actuarial designation, and i would never do that if I were in the same boat as you. If you still can’t overcome the urge, then just do P, FM and MFE. Anything else will be an overkill. And if you find CFA level 2 hard, you won’t have much fun with the actuarial exams.
The ASA exams assume you already have a good grounding in calculus and algebra, so a refresher would definitely help you. As well, the exams will dive far deeper into the math than the CFA quant materials. Of course, there are all sorts of exam study guide providers out there. I agree with Actiger, in that P, FM, and MFE are likely the most closely related to your work; MLC (life contingencies) and the FSA exams go way deep into the liability side, and unless you work in the insurance/pension space, I don’t recommend you go this far.
I’m also concerned about why you want to do the exams: Do the exams provide knowledge/skills that would enhance your group’s performance? Are you ready to invest time and grief in the process, even though you don’t want to practice as an actuary? It’s just that from what I understand of your situation, I think the costs far outweigh the benefits.
The concensus seems to be that it’s much more common to have come from an acturial background to a broader finance one than the reverse and that it’s probably not worth the time investment to be practicing outside a role that is specifically an actuarial role.
Couple of questions answered:
Stratman: Currently in a trader/analyst role, but liability driven investment is our fastest growing mandate.
Breadmaker: I’m currently only 25 and can probably take the exam pressure at this point in my life. While CFA obviously is challenging, it has never not been completely doable; if the ASA series is even 1/3 harder by whatever measure, then I’d be game (save for practicallity). I do work in the pension space although being in institutional AM, not exclusively. While the plans on the other end obviously do have their own actuaries, the curiosity in that avenue stems more from a client service/product development perspective than a risk/performance one.
Actiger: That is almost my story in reverse. Being younger, there is a conscious reliazation that if I am to take on such an enormous committment, now is the time to do it. Definitely see the point on the time investment for an “off-label” practice, if I may call it that.
I’ve taken actuarial exams (was an actuarial analyst in a past life), and unless you are going to do asset/liability modeling for an actuarial consulting firm, I wouldn’t bother. Only reason I was taking them was because I got a pay bump and it was required to move up to a consulting actuary role.
Those exams are brutal. I found the CFA to be slightly easier, though it is hard to compare them.
If you are still insane and want to do them - I started taking them when I was 26 and went out and bought “Calculus for Dummies”. I sh*t you not. It was enough of a refresher to help me with the first exam which was calculus heavy.
I’ve spoken to 3 actuaries that did both. Each one of them found the CFA exams easier (none were business grads) mainly because they felt the material only went an inch deep.
I’ve been on a couple dates with a chick that’s about to take her last ASA exam. I finally found a relatively normal, relatively attractive, girl that has a good job and makes decent money.
I found that there are really 3 tiers of actuary exams. P and FM are fairly trivial, though heavy on the math side. MFE and MLC are noticeably more difficult and C is harder still, but comparable to MFE or MLC. Then the FSA level exams (quant finance) are a completely different world. Those FSA exams cover a massive amount of material in great detail. If you look at the texts for the FSA quant track the books (brigo in particular) are highly respected amongst the Quants I work with. I found the FSA quant exams to be extremely valuable, but sadly the FSA doesn’t seem to have much pull in the investment community outside of specialist areas.
I also don’t know anyone that has gone CFA to FSA. I think this largely owes to the actuary exams covering a fair amount of the CFA curriculum in greater detail (depending on FSA track of course).
