Looking to gather some opinions on my situation, please hear me out. I finished my undergrad in Accounting and have been employed by a F500 as an Accountant for about a year and a half. I am currently in the process to switching over to a big 4 to pursue my CA. If all goes well (interviews are in beginning of October) I will be starting in September 2009. For my CA, I have two more Audit courses that I have to do, and that can be done in the upcoming winter semester Jan-April, or over the summer May – August (both options are taking time away from studying for L2). My initial goal was to sign up for L2 and write in June, then take the two courses I need for my CA in a 6 week compressed time span from July – August (my school offers it). The problem with that is that it’s the equivalent of taking a full course load and working full time. I’d be in class every day after work and after studying for 6 months for L2, I would be asking to burn myself out right before my CA exams begin, which are a different monster in itself. Imagine a CFA exam and spread that over 3 days as it’s 5 hours each day. Now the CFA designation in itself isn’t a prime interest for me, I like what I am learning and I find a lot of value in the curriculum, however I don’t plan nor want to work in industry. My goal is get my CA and start my own gig. On the other hand, while I am articling for my CA designation, that same experience is counted towards the CFA designation as well (I called the institute to verify) and I’d be killing two birds with one stone. I am not sure if I should register now or just leave it for after my CA exams, but I might never come back to it and it’s honestly a waste if I already studied for L1 to just drop this, it’s not fitting of me to quit like this. What should I do?
Alexandrov…i love the enthusiasm, but as a CA who is now pursuing CFA, my suggestion is to space things out a bit and take a bit of time. I became a CA in 1998. I started the CFA process in 2007. You will likely have a long and varied career, with plenty of opportunities and different jobs that will shape your view of exactly what you want to do. I think you should focus 100% on your CA…make sure you get that, and then start to focus on your CFA. There are probably some economies of scale in trying to knock of both in a short period of time, but they are both huge time commitments, so in my opinion, you should do one then the other. Just my two cents. Good luck with whatever decision you go…
I would be more upset if I had just passed level III and was looking for a job on Wallstreet today. You won’t be done for 2-3 more years and by that time the outlook will have changed. Business cycles were in the level I curriculum after all. By the way, I’m short in a crude oil ETF and hope to ride it down to $50 oil and then will be looking for a cyclical industry to ride up. You’ve got to have some fun with this stuff.
Down to $50??? Good luck! I just moved money to more equity. There’s panic out there and panicked people make horrible deals.
seriously … come on, $50? what world are you in? I mean, crazy things can happen… but not $50 a barrel. If anything, $80 is its absolute lowest, if it get to the low $90s that’s when im longing anything oil and energy related. I’m starting to build positions even in solar!
50 dollars? WTF? 80 at the lowest… where did you get 50 from? Even without speculators push oil would not be that low.
“50 dollars? WTF? 80 at the lowest… where did you get 50 from? Even without speculators push oil would not be that low.” Where does $50 come from? Geez, economics is in the curriculum. We know that the short term supply curve is the marginal cost curve. There may be some weird situations where many oil is collected with a lot of extra help and then driven by truck several hundred miles to the nearest refinery. Maybe this cost $70 for the marginal barrel but this is only trickle. The lifting cost in the Middle East is about below $5 per barrel and in the United States for most wells its in the $8 to $10 range. Add another $20 for other costs and you are up to around $30 per barrel. Look back over the last 15 years, did oil production shut down when oil went below $30 per barrel. If the oil companies can make money at $30 per barrel I think they are still making money at $50. Anyway, it’s the cartel that keeps production down and prices above the costs you would expect in a competitive market. Right now it seems like OPEC is not acting very aggressively to keep prices up. So my forecast based on oil coming down closer to cost is $50. And is $50 is as good as any forecast 3-4 months ago by those clowns on wall street that said it would be going to $150 or even $200.