Do you think being an analyst/CFA is easy technically?

CFA General
#1

I took papers like CFA, FRM, CAIA and did not fail any paper. However, I have a very hard time with programming in my current job where there are so many things to learn and they are not common sense (like strongnamed, generics, assembly, ZMQ in C#). There are so many things to learn and I find myself learning new things everyday. I feel smarter than average people in Finance (Maybe I am book smart) but feel dumb in programming. Or is it just me?

I understand being an analyst require PR skills but not a programmer.

#2

“analyst” by itself can be a ton of different things. you need to be much more specific.

#3

maybe a qualitative analyst. I believe most of the folks are qualitative analyst and AM? Please correct me if I wrong as CFA is geared towards the direction, like reading finance reports

#4

The CFA is not only qualitative, well, that depends on how you define it.

What kind of programming are you thinking about? Using third-partry software or writing code?

#5

The CFA is qualiative in nature. From CFA Level 1-3, I never used anything more than simple arithmetic. I refering to writing of code here.

I did a class in Financial Statement Analysis in college and have written few analyst reports. I feel writing such report is like telling a story with some numbers to back up and is not really hard. But of course, maybe a qualiative analyst will do much more than this in his job

#6

The CFA exams are much more conceptual than mathematical than most people think.

#7

I feel that a good analyst requires a certain dreamer/futurist feature about him. Using numbers only takes you so far but writing a good and convincing story about how a sector/economy/market will look in 2-5 years takes some serious imagination and knowledge. I’m sure the vast majority of great investors don’t have the highest IQs but are more balanced than most.

#8

^ No one can predict the future, this has been proven again and again. But i do agree with you that a good analyst need some serious imagination and creativity

#9

mostly qualitative and feels like journalist/detective work. small amount of modeling, replicating other people’s work with a bit of modifications, and gauging prices based on reaction to news with probabailities.

#10

Well, again, that depends on how you define it.

Quantitative analysis involves any analysis using numbers. The simplicity of such is not relevant. Valuations, regressions, FR&A, macroeconomic factors, these are all quantitative analysis.

Qualitiative financial analysis is the use of subjective prespective, like managment comptency, competitive analysis, customer base behaviour, indutsry trends, market psychology, strategy shaping…etc.

You’re probably referring to financial engineering, or quantitative finance. Which is a different field altogether more or less.

#11

I think he means that although it is technically quantitative in nautre, you do not need even a remotely deep understanding of math to complete the CFA.