NYCGorilla Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > SOA blows the CFA away. My boy( who is a genius by > the way 1560/1600 on SAT)is a full-fledged FSA > and he said the CFA exams are a joke. Man, your boy must have no respect for you considering he probly knows you are pursuing the CFA designation.
Give me $200 each, for your own protection. And I’ll forget the insult. You young punks have to learn to respect a man like me!
This reminds me of the post about whether CFA or Ironman triathlon is harder.
Been through both systems, so I’ll chime in: Yes, the math is nastier on the SoA side, at least in the earlier exams; both systems have an impressive volume of material to absorb; all of the actuaries in my circle have respect for the CFA exams. And thanks for the Vocational Guidance Counsellor link! It’s still funny after all these years!
NYCGorilla Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Give me $200 each, for your own protection. And > I’ll forget the insult. You young punks have to > learn to respect a man like me! I will give you $200, I just need a $100 processing fee, which I will refund to you as a protection enchancement guarantee, bringing the total remittance to $300. Please paypal me the processing fee at your convenience.
breadmaker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Been through both systems, so I’ll chime in: Yes, > the math is nastier on the SoA side, at least in > the earlier exams; both systems have an > impressive volume of material to absorb; all of > the actuaries in my circle have respect for the > CFA exams. > > And thanks for the Vocational Guidance Counsellor > link! It’s still funny after all these years! What are you doing now, breadmaker?
jcole21 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > NYCGorilla Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Give me $200 each, for your own protection. And > > I’ll forget the insult. You young punks have to > > learn to respect a man like me! > > > I will give you $200, I just need a $100 > processing fee, which I will refund to you as a > protection enchancement guarantee, bringing the > total remittance to $300. Please paypal me the > processing fee at your convenience. I have a good friend who does something like this. He is based out of Nigeria. I should introduce the two of you.
Dear jcole21, I’m basically in student mode. Actuarial work doesn’t hold much appeal to me anymore, so I thought it was time to try something else. Reminds me: I gotta see what supacharja is up to these days…
breadmaker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Dear jcole21, > > I’m basically in student mode. Actuarial work > doesn’t hold much appeal to me anymore, so I > thought it was time to try something else. > Reminds me: I gotta see what supacharja is up to > these days… Do you mean that the “boradness” of CFA in comparison to FSA’s is likely to yield more “fun”?
^^ I meant “broadness.” Where are you breadmaker?
Dr.Mavashi01 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I got an impression that the > crowd was not impressed with level of rigor and > difficulty that the CFA path presents in > comparison to the SOA’s path to fellowship. What > say you ? No point of comparison, IMO. The CFA involves general quantitative skill; becoming an actuary usally requires graduate studies in math/statistics.
defone Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Dr.Mavashi01 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I got an impression that the > > crowd was not impressed with level of rigor and > > difficulty that the CFA path presents in > > comparison to the SOA’s path to fellowship. > What > > say you ? > > No point of comparison, IMO. The CFA involves > general quantitative skill; becoming an actuary > usally requires graduate studies in > math/statistics. I disagree - I work on a floor of actuaries (probably 30 total, 10 that I know fairly well) - none of them have graduate degrees (even MBA’s aren’t utilized much since the support program for becoming an actuary within our firm is viewed as an executive development program). I believe that the ASA/FSA designation are certainly masters level, but I don’t know any actuaries that pursued an advanced degree to facilitate the passing of their exams.
Dr.Mavashi01 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ^^ I meant “broadness.” Where are you breadmaker? I’m here. Got a major education on the liability side from the SoA system, with a smatttering of asset side stuff. I thought the CFA exams would help balance things out.
I had lunch with an actuary from large pension advisory firm last week. The guy wouldn’t look me in the eye, limp fished me, and sat slumped over the table while talking to his plate. Social skills ranked close to a 0. Now I think all actuaries are like this…someone prove me wrong.
Chuckrox8 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I had lunch with an actuary from large pension > advisory firm last week. The guy wouldn’t look me > in the eye, limp fished me, and sat slumped over > the table while talking to his plate. Social > skills ranked close to a 0. Now I think all > actuaries are like this…someone prove me wrong. I’ll introduce you to a hot actuary that runs triathlons (and wins them). While you won’t be limp fished, you’ll have your proof. I think that is the stereotypical actuary, at least in my world it’s minimally true. I’d say the one’s I’ve met were more analytical than most just in their framework, but have been socially competent (although in general less outgoing than the AM folks I’ve met, with some pretty notable exceptions - the exceptions seem to be the ones that rise the furthest/quickest).
The Actuaries vs CFA thread comes up every once a while. It’s hard to make the comparisons if you haven’t done exams on both tracks. I am a practicing actuary who has finished all his exams on the investment track and currently studying for CFA level II (my work involves a lot of knowledge on assets and risk capital). In terms of the material, actuarial exams involve a lot more material than the CFA exams. The first five exams are applied quantitative knowledge (statistical theory, financial math, financial economics, insurance-specific modeling). The average study time required for each of the first five is about 300 hours. Then there are two non-quantitative exams on actuarial related knowledge. These two combined will take about 400 hours. The last two exams are track-specific and essay exams (includ. an investment track) - each takes like 400-600 hours of studying. Then there’s the capstone e-elearning requirements before fellowships taking about 200 hours. If you add that all up it takes about 3000 hours to complete your actuarial education to fellowship IF YOU PASS EVERYTHING ON FIRST TRY. It takes a lot to become an actuary and usually only possible if your employer sponsors your study time with allowed time off work of 1000-1500 hours. Any fellow actuary who has completed his exams on the investmen track and holds the CFA charter will tell you that it’s much harder to pass the last two fellowship exams on investments than level II and level III of the CFA. Those two exams require quantitative reasoning, a lot of memorization, and decent essay writing.
pennyless, Correct me if I am wrong, but it seem that it is not common for Actuaries on the investment track to successfully switch to positions that prefer CFA charter in the job descriptions and other quant heavy roles in the investment industry, why do you think that is?
Dr. Mavashi, The investment track knowledge from the actuarial curriculum is meant to teach you how to management assets and liabilities in the insurance industry by having insight on both sides. A lot of the knowledge is useable in other areas of finance as well. The focus of the investments curriculum is on liability-driven investment strategies. They are not meant to teach you how to pick stocks based on financial statements and they are not meant to teach you stochastic differential equations. Positions that prefer CFA charterholders and quant roles prefer knowledge specific to the their fields. People pursue the actuarial exams on the investment tracks because they want to be actuaries and learn the knowledge specific to the area of actuarial practice that they are interested in. If an actuary is interested in making career switch to investment management roles or quant roles, he should still expand his knowledge by studying what’s on the CFA curriculum or in an MFE degree. I never said an actuarial curriculum will suffice for both. I personally know many actuaries who successfully moved to investment banks and HFs after completing the CFA or the MFE. Their actuarial experience and knowledge are also highly valued by employers. I am an actuary but I consulted for a bank on Wall Street for 11 months last year. My point is, go for the actuarial exams only if you are interested in being an actuary. If your ultimate goal is something else - IM/quant, you shouldn’t bother wasting all those hours to get credentialed as an actuary.
NYCGorilla Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > SOA blows the CFA away. My boy( who is a genius by > the way 1560/1600 on SAT)is a full-fledged FSA > and he said the CFA exams are a joke. My boy who is a math genius said FSA exams are a joke… and i agree with him, you can study using books and pass. There is no difference between knowing how to add 2 numbers, take derivative or solve differential equation. Level of complexity is the same. I can show you algebraic problems that require nothing but basic algebra that are 1000 more difficult than taking some derivative.