Hi forum Good wishes,
i am 35 and currently a self studied financial analyst and also a certified techncial analyst in equitites and a certified Derivatives professosnal. i have my own limited clinets portfolio business and expanding more clients. me and my wife, both of us into financial business, MY WIFE IS a CFP Holder
My question is whether to Get a CFA or Focus on my current exsting business and take it forward. i am confused, need a outside view
thanks in advance
The CFA program is meant to be taken along side a full time job. So, you’re not supposed to have to choose between doing the CFA and focusing on your career.
My recommendation would be for you to look through the CFA material, and try to decide if that information is interesting or will help your career.
Depending on your background and career aspirations, it could help. If you are a retial advisor, stick with the CFP. If you are already in institutional finance, don’t bother. If you would like to be in institutional finance and don’t have a top MBA, it may be worth it.
If you have the time it can’t hurt. There’s a lot of good material in the curriculum.
Do you want to pick stocks as part of your business? Then the first two levels of the CFA are useful things to know about if you haven’t gone through an IB analyst program.
Do you imagine having institutional clients? That’s probably a stretch if you are not already on track for that, but perhaps small family offices are feasible if you have the right connections. Then you’d want to do the CFA (Level 3 is very useful for that).
If you are just doing asset allocations with retail or “mass affluent” types of accounts, the CFP is probably good enough, and does cover things like tax and insurance issues better than the CFA does (though whether they cover it in a way that’s relevant to your location - which reads as India - is something I don’t know).
I am in a very similar situation as well. I am actually considering a career change. So I don’t even have a very strong finance or investment background. I am also trying to find out the approximate income level for the industry as well. If I have a take a very significant pay-cut, I won’t be able to do it.
It’s not critical if you start before 35 or after. Just make sure you don’t get hit by a global financial crisis as soon as you finish. That part of the program sucks.