I have a friend of mine that I recently informed that I was beginning my CFA prep, and that interested him as well. He is a fairly bright guy and has a finance degree. He’s a loan officer at a local bank and looking to build on his finance knowledge. He had an interesting question…does a CFA Charterholder have to deal directly with investing? I automatically stated “Yes, in some capacity (whether it’s in research, modeling, quantitative analysis, or portfolio management).” But I’m curious, you see financial analyst as a title at many companies even ones that don’t deal in investing (saw a position at ESPN for a financial analyst when I was looking for jobs after college) what’s the difference between those guys and CFA charterholders at investing firms? Is one better than the other? Are they linked? I wonder…
No. Financial analyst is usually a term for accountants; investment or research analyst is more what you’re looking for.