Thanks for the tip. I plan to do so when I get some free time.
Cute article, but physician compensation has long been underreported. Like any good worker’s guild, it is in the best interest of the practitioner to underreport. Salary reports will often conveniently leave out practice profit. My anecdotal experience supports the assertion as well. I’ve dealt with dozens of physicians through the years and making less than $350k would be the exception, with a median over $600k. Here’s a more balanced and timely article.
It’s a waste of time to just take one level if you’re not going for all three levels and the charter. It takes a LOT of time and energy to prepare for each of these exams. Have you looked at the curriculum? Seasonned finance/econ majors who spent four years in college (and grad level work) often fail the exams, so someone coming in with zero background will struggle even more. If you’re really interested in learning more about investing, take a less academic approach and start by reading the staples (The Intelligent Investor, Liar’s Poker, A Fool and his Money, etc). Read the finance/business section in the news. Put a very small amount of money in a trading account (like Robin Hood) and play around while being fully prepared to lose the money (consider it tuition). Learn the basics of financial statements (youtube). Listen in quarterly conference calls from companies you like. Watch finance shows (Jim Cramer’s Mad Money, but only for entertainment and not investment advice). All this would cater well to your time constraints and residency commitments, which I’d imagine takes 12-14 hours of your time now.
The CFA program would be a waste of your time for these purposes. Go through this first, most charterholders still have trouble with these basic fundamentals. Learn these well and you’ll be ahead of most investors…
Don’t listen to him. He’s only marketing penis enlargement pills.
I can randomly find 100 “experienced” people in finance and maybe 5 of them are worth their fees or can beat the market. The rest make crazy money for failing year after year.
I don’t think he was asking because he is greedy or acting poorly for his own gain (he’s making an honest living and gave up an incredible amount of time to do so). I do think you could make the same flimsy argument about people in the CFA program (see the ethics book…), since the program propagates the idea that a member/charter holder is the highest standard of putting the client first. Personally, I don’t think it’s a good argument, and you seem a little jaded towards physicians, but I could have misperceived that.
Don’t listen to him. He’s only marketing penis enlargement pills.
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Actually, no such thing exists. I’m sorry to disappoint you LOL
If you are thinking of investing in direct equity market, CFA is a good course to learn various ways of analysis and techniques of investment. Or Its better to just do reasearch on some good Mutual fund house and select funds for your investment where you can invest also to build your wealth and still have sufficient time for your profession as a physician.
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Your already a very busy person and you shouldn’t get bogged down in the detail of the CFA program to learn how to manage your money personally
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Following on from that. Investing your our money brings in to much emotion to the picture. I.e do you sell S&P futures on the night of the election under a discount brokerage account or does an professional ride through the process. Your cleanly a very successful and smart individual. Emotions always wins over logic, as the smartest IA is not as successful the smooth talking IA. Please look at an professionals resume before working with them.
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In Level 3 of the CFA you will learn, that in efficient markets (such as large cap US markets) that the value may not come from being a great picker of stocks with fundamental analysis. But in resource the Wealth manager has at their disposal with creating tax alpha and correctly using asset allocation to manage and mitigate risks.
*slow clap*
95% of L1 takers (and maybe only 94% of AF users) come to the program to learn how to pick stocks. This is not where the value in our industry lies. Tax alpha/risk management isn’t nearly as sexy as Jim Cramer though apparently, so everyone just wants to skip over it.
How do you know that, you made some scientific research?
What is your question asking about specifically?
About exact sample of people attending program with mentioned expectation. I would say that over 90 % attendants expect better job or/and salary rather than expecting stock picking skills improvement. At least check official structure of attendants, as I remember traders are not significantly represented in total attendants population .
I stand by my guesstimate, even if stock picking isn’t their primary motivation. However, portfolio manager is the most popular charterholder occupation, and I would guess again that the majority of these are attempting to pick stocks.
My guess is that such percentage is quite less than 95%, maybe even less than 30% if we look at the overall world sample. I cannot remember any person who joined the program with solely such motivation.
Good thing I didn’t say that was their sole motivation then…
I don’t know how about you but I was better stock picker before this program when I was just spontaneous. Now I think too much before each opportunity.
^ fooled by randomness
Level 1 is very interesting for a non-finance background person, it is relatively cheap and you get that extra motivation from having a deadline for the test
Levels 2 and 3 are dull