Questions for Value Guys

CFA General
#1

It’s good to see we have quite a few aspiring value investors on this forum who are working towards their designation. I’ve got a few queries for you:

  1. What sort of background do you have - and are you opting for a value investing gig or some other investment role in light of your pursuit of the charter.

  2. If you were interviewing for a value based role, what’d be some of the good stuff you’d share with your interviewer about your CFA experience (other than the usual ‘committed to finance’ and ‘hard worker’ bit) – the kind of stuff that’d put the interviewer (who may be a prominent value investor) in awe.

  3. For the passionate value investor - how’d you relay (or defend?) CFA curriculum’s treatment of risk and not enough content around strategy and/or ‘real life’ case studies.

For those with charters currently practicing value investing - how has the charter benefitted you in the past and are these (or other benefits) likely to hold on an ongoing basis in further nurturing your value investing role.

#2

  1. I have no background in anything. I am looking for a “value investing gig” however.

  2. Gave me the skills to read fin statements and interpret them.

  3. CFA is about much more than value investing. Certain styles of investing heavily do use those concepts, despite your disdain for them.

#3

  1. degrees in econ

  2. skills to read fin statements

  3. real case studies might be bias and too difficult to grade accurately…

#4

^ and PHD in HCB.

#5

oooo double entendre

#6

(1) Three years in equity research, a couple years in private equity/LBO, MBA, and now an equity analyst at a hedge fund

(2) Best advice for how you can put any interviewer in awe is by presenting an awesome stock pitch that aligns with the way the person thinks about investing. I have not been to a serious buy-side interview where they did not ask me to pitch a stock. Every one asked me to pitch a stock, most asked for two, and a few asked for three. This entire business is all about idea generation and everyone can say they are a hard worker or some other qualitative and unsubstantiable claim, but not everyone can come up with a thoughtful investment idea based on a robust and sensible investment process. I would even go so far as to say that if you are interviewing for some equity role, either on the buy-side or sell-side, you are better off not meeting with them unless you have at least one idea to talk about. It’s better to delay making a first impression than to make a lousy one prematurely.

(3) No clue, never finished the CFA program and not sure when I’ll ever have time for it