Hi
I am new to this forum. I have passed CPA in Feb 2011, now I intend to go for CFA course
Appreciate, if some one guide that, it would be how difficult for CPA’s to pursue CFA
Thanks
CFA Level I isn’t too bad. It’s mostly a review of most business courses like Economics, Finance, Statistics, Accounting. There are some new things a pure accounting background might not cover like Alternative Investments, Fixed Income, and some more advanced finance and accounting topics. Mostly the Level I exam is just a ton of material. I’m studying for Level II now and lots of is new. So any advantage your CPA background might give you will be probably be gone after the first exam. Speaking as someone with an accounting background and halfway through the CPA exams…
Actually, Level II has more accounting in it, so you’ll probably get some benefit there too.
It’s similar to CPA in terms of level of effort required, but the substance and the orientation is different. The accounting stuff will help you at L1 and to some extent at L2, but you have to remember that accountants tend to look at financial statements in terms of whether they accurately reflect the past, and financial analysts look at them in terms of what they indicate about the future. It’s a different perspective, and it means that things that have to be done a certain way for audit and legal reasons don’t have to be done the same way for analysis reasons. In fact, a certain amount of stuff is actually about undoing what the legalities are in order to get a better picture of the economic reality of the firm. If you take a forensic accounting approach, you get more closely into the financial mindset, in terms of trying to figure out if things have been arranged to hide stuff or deemphasize things.
Two different animals. CPA exam is more specific and questions can be very detailed and tricky. CFA exam covers much wider scope, but questions are generally not as difficult in comparison. Financial accounting in CPA will help in the FSA section, but that’s about all.
It’ll help a bit in Economics and Corp. Finance (depending on when you took the exam). The BEC section has a very watered down version of both, but might still turn on a few memory cells here and there.
Does anyone know about the Australian CPA and how it compares with the US version? I don’t really know about either of them but a friend has recently become a CPA in Australia and that got me thinking…
This is not even comparable. Apple to Oranges, but I guess you are trying to align it so that they are similar. I guess they are both fruits.
It’s not incomparable. At least 20% of the CFA exams are financial statement analysis. So, if you are unfortunate enough to be a chartered accountant, you can at least gang bang that 20% of the tests. As for the rest of the 80% - who knows? But at least you have an advantage in the 20%.
Hi Really, I am thanksfull to all of you, have answered my quary. From all of above post, I have come to the conclusion that definitely , I will get some benefit from my CPA backgrond, and most likely, I will be joining CFA course and probably sit for Level-1 in Dec 2012 Thanks