^ So you spent 10 years trying to get the CFA charter, and still have not completed it? I can’t imagine who wouldn’t be sour after trying so long. And I don’t totally agree with a few of your arguments. 40% of the entire material is EMH? That’s not true either. Your argument actually sounded decent, until you spelled prestigious wrong.
See! This is what I hate. CFA curriculum dulls people’s mind. EMH is wrong!! It is obvioulsy wrong. Taleb Nassim and Mandelbrot completely demolished it. CFA curriculum should be completely changed. Simply drop everything that has a greek letter attached. The Keynesian economics is also useless. That probably is 30-50% of the curriculum. Add in-depth history of financial markets. At least two study sessions on trading indicators and charting. Add two study sessions on non-obvious trading strategies. Force people to read Misbehaviour of Financial Markets and throw in some Austrian economics (even if you disagree it is now a widely studied approach to economics which CFA’s have not the slightest clue)
I’m going to take a wild guess. Another arrogant IBD monkey? Just saying…only in IBD do they confuse spelling and formatting with actually adding value. I have spent 4 years getting my CFA. You seem to forget that you can take time off (like for taking your MBA and working). End of the day I have a senior VP position and by your young cocky tone, I gather you don’t. And do you even analyze what you study? - Asset allocation = CML & SML = EMH - Economics = EMH - Corporate finance = CAPM = EMH - Derivatives = Black Sholes = EMH - Performance evaluation = sharpe ration = EMH I may even be generous in saying that 40% of the curriculum is EMH. It is everywhere in the CFA curriculum
Equivocation Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’m going to take a wild guess. Another arrogant > IBD monkey? Just saying…only in IBD do they > confuse spelling and formatting with actually > adding value. > > I have spent 4 years getting my CFA. You seem to > forget that you can take time off (like for taking > your MBA and working). End of the day I have a > senior VP position and by your young cocky tone, I > gather you don’t. > > And do you even analyze what you study? > > - Asset allocation = CML & SML = EMH > - Economics = EMH > - Corporate finance = CAPM = EMH > - Derivatives = Black Sholes = EMH > - Performance evaluation = sharpe ration = EMH > > I may even be generous in saying that 40% of the > curriculum is EMH. It is everywhere in the CFA > curriculum question: what is the best way to remove hair from your pee hole?
Superior, Sorry dude. You can beg all you want but you will not get to play with my twigs and berries =)
Equivocation Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Superior, > > Sorry dude. You can beg all you want but you will > not get to play with my twigs and berries > > =) “twigs” plural? Dang dude
Your career sounds pretty impressive; is it fair to say you are two or more Big Swinging Dicks?
Captain, You should always end on a high note. First comment - Funny Second comment - Lame
I’ll be the judge of that.
>Equivocation >How can I recommend that they spend a miniumum of 900 hours (more likely 1,800hr = a >full year) studying concepts 50% of which they will never need for their direct job and >40% >of which I know to be wrong? I would rather just give them a reading list. On that point, I did a BSc in Finance, which has become highly respected among financial firms in the UK an Ireland, for undergraduates, and Im on level 2 of CFA, working for a small consultancy at the moment, which would not be my cup of tea, but hey im still young. Now on the BSc most people from my class and including myself, realize that most of the material we did in Uni we will never use again, in fact if we were to use about 50% of what we learned in Uni that would be a real achievement! So on your basis why did I bother doing a BSc in Finance, I should of just read some books… oh wait because most firms require that you have a Bachelors degree with at least a 2nd class honors upper level grade (Europe), to even apply for a graduate program, of course im sure they are aware that its all a load of shit, and we are all just wasting our time studying it… If I were to get an MBA, how much of that do you think I would use? My guess would be very little. As for the CFA, I didn’t see anything new in Level 1. Level 2 there is alot of interesting stuff, whether I will ever need it… who knows… I dont know where I will be in 2 or 3 years time, my aim is to get into the investment management side of things, or even research. But I like learning new stuff, even if it is purely theoretical, its a field im interested in, and I would not discredit any achievement that requires nearly 1,000 hours of studying, where a max of 50% pass every year. We all would like to study something that applies directly to our job, and so that we could apply 70% - 80%, of the things we learned, but that would involve hundreds of charters for all the specific roles in Finance, and it would be very risky. As far as I know their is no Chartered Banking Stock Equity Researcher Financial Analyst designation…
Equivocation makes a fair point, how much of it is practical ? Not as much as should be given its purpose. I’m fairly sure a lot of us would like to be schooled in how to make great asset allocation, portfolio and security selection choices. The rest is just noise.
A lot of bitter people out on this site these days. I’ll agree that the recession has been a PITA for me too and I’m grumpier and not as patient as I once was, but the bile spewed on this site seems to exponentiate every day. So the CFA isn’t the key to eternal bliss as an ER analyst, or your job doesn’t use exactly every point in the curriculum. And so you’re angry that some people seem to think the thing is valuable and so you have to do it? College was a waste for you too, I assume (remember that wasting your time in college is different from college itself being a waste). After all, why get the big picture on things; since you’re already in the industry, clearly your future involves nothing more than doing exactly what you’ve been doing up to now, except that you dream of ever larger compensation. CFA also doesn’t teach you how to build an organization (though it hints at Level 3 about the risk management part), it doesn’t teach you to market your products (though some of the language of alpha at L3 and the IPS stuff is relevant), it doesn’t teach you how to handle compensation squabbles in your day-to-day work. It doesn’t teach you how to get to your job on time when the 3 train suddenly starts running on the R track because you had to get up before the weekend was over. After all, you put in 900 hours of studying, shouldn’t you be taught these things too? EMH is a big part of the curriculum, but you don’t have to believe it to get the charter. EMH is present in a lot of the exam not because it must be true, but that to use many of the valuation techniques, it helps (though is not totally necessary) to assume it. Do you really want to answer 120-240 problems in six hours that require you to create an answer for every possible contingency and inefficiency in the economy and markets? No, you assume markets are fairly efficient, unless the problem tells you that so-and-so has found that X will outperform Y through extra analysis, and then you practice the concept or idea that’s in the curriculum. I wish the CFA exams had taught me how to use proprietary money making techniques; but they just aren’t published in the public domain very often, and would become just as much of a “waste of time” if they were. I completely disagree that the curriculum forces EMH on you. If that’s true, then there is no reason to cover asset valuation (they’re already correct), financial statements analysis (what’s the point?), Treynor-Black or Black-Litterman portfolio construction (doesn’t work without inefficiencies). And anyone who has passed Level 2, as you claim to have done, should know that 95% of derivatives are based on arbitrage, which only assumes that markets are reasonably liquid, not that they are efficient, and certainly not in the EMH way of being efficient. Black Scholes does assume a normal distribution of shocks to returns, and while that is not a perfect description of reality, that is not really the same as the idea that prices correctly reflect the risk involved. CAPM does assume that markets are efficient, but you can live with CAPM as a first approximation of reality and still do pretty well. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say that many markets are “pretty efficient,” in the sense that it is difficult to outperform them consistently just by picking stocks. What that does is force you to investigate how managers pick stocks or securities to make sure that they have a process that makes some sense, and not just be bowled over by some statement that “well, we have a bunch of smart guys that just know.” How can Keynesian economics be 30-50% of the curriculum, when Econ is only 10% of Level 1 and 10% of Level 2, and not really in Level 3 very much at all (L3 econ is really more like doing economy wide FSA and equity analysis). And Keynesian economics doesn’t cover currencies, or the sources of economic growth, the crowding-out effect, or the equation of exchange which are in that tiny portion of the curriculum. And technical analysis? Well, the CFA curriculum is starting to include more TA, although to do it justice, we may need to expand the material to make it 4 levels now. I just think someone here lacks perspective and is grumpy for it.
Re: Why are we getting CFA’s? for the groupies, of course
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > A lot of bitter people out on this site these > days. I’ll agree that the recession has been a > PITA for me too and I’m grumpier and not as > patient as I once was, but the bile spewed on this > site seems to exponentiate every day. > > So the CFA isn’t the key to eternal bliss as an ER > analyst, or your job doesn’t use exactly every > point in the curriculum. And so you’re angry that > some people seem to think the thing is valuable > and so you have to do it? College was a waste for > you too, I assume (remember that wasting your time > in college is different from college itself being > a waste). After all, why get the big picture on > things; since you’re already in the industry, > clearly your future involves nothing more than > doing exactly what you’ve been doing up to now, > except that you dream of ever larger > compensation. > > CFA also doesn’t teach you how to build an > organization (though it hints at Level 3 about the > risk management part), it doesn’t teach you to > market your products (though some of the language > of alpha at L3 and the IPS stuff is relevant), it > doesn’t teach you how to handle compensation > squabbles in your day-to-day work. It doesn’t > teach you how to get to your job on time when the > 3 train suddenly starts running on the R track > because you had to get up before the weekend was > over. After all, you put in 900 hours of > studying, shouldn’t you be taught these things > too? > > EMH is a big part of the curriculum, but you don’t > have to believe it to get the charter. EMH is > present in a lot of the exam not because it must > be true, but that to use many of the valuation > techniques, it helps (though is not totally > necessary) to assume it. Do you really want to > answer 120-240 problems in six hours that require > you to create an answer for every possible > contingency and inefficiency in the economy and > markets? No, you assume markets are fairly > efficient, unless the problem tells you that > so-and-so has found that X will outperform Y > through extra analysis, and then you practice the > concept or idea that’s in the curriculum. > > I wish the CFA exams had taught me how to use > proprietary money making techniques; but they just > aren’t published in the public domain very often, > and would become just as much of a “waste of time” > if they were. > > I completely disagree that the curriculum forces > EMH on you. If that’s true, then there is no > reason to cover asset valuation (they’re already > correct), financial statements analysis (what’s > the point?), Treynor-Black or Black-Litterman > portfolio construction (doesn’t work without > inefficiencies). > > And anyone who has passed Level 2, as you claim to > have done, should know that 95% of derivatives are > based on arbitrage, which only assumes that > markets are reasonably liquid, not that they are > efficient, and certainly not in the EMH way of > being efficient. Black Scholes does assume a > normal distribution of shocks to returns, and > while that is not a perfect description of > reality, that is not really the same as the idea > that prices correctly reflect the risk involved. > > CAPM does assume that markets are efficient, but > you can live with CAPM as a first approximation of > reality and still do pretty well. I think it’s > perfectly reasonable to say that many markets are > “pretty efficient,” in the sense that it is > difficult to outperform them consistently just by > picking stocks. What that does is force you to > investigate how managers pick stocks or securities > to make sure that they have a process that makes > some sense, and not just be bowled over by some > statement that “well, we have a bunch of smart > guys that just know.” > > How can Keynesian economics be 30-50% of the > curriculum, when Econ is only 10% of Level 1 and > 10% of Level 2, and not really in Level 3 very > much at all (L3 econ is really more like doing > economy wide FSA and equity analysis). And > Keynesian economics doesn’t cover currencies, or > the sources of economic growth, the crowding-out > effect, or the equation of exchange which are in > that tiny portion of the curriculum. > > And technical analysis? Well, the CFA curriculum > is starting to include more TA, although to do it > justice, we may need to expand the material to > make it 4 levels now. > > I just think someone here lacks perspective and is > grumpy for it. This. Nice post.
CFA is going to help me get promoted.
^ +100 BChad!
Adda boy Bchad - better put than I could.
I am getting the CFA because I fancy cats
jpm351 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It depends on what you want to do. If you want to > be in research or investment management, you will > be hard pressed showing up with no CFA and a bunch > of futures trading experience. > > Here’s my abbreviated story. Got a job at a bulge > bracket in the back office out of school. > Absolutely hated it - you get no respect, and > despite what they might tell you, there is zero > lateral movement out of the back office. Worst > part for me, though, was dealing with people > making 150k acting like they ran the shop - still > makes me want to puke thinking back about it. > > So I knew trade settlement wasn’t for me - shocker > - so I took level I of the CFA, passed, and > started thinking about what I wanted to do. More > and more, research was on my mind, and I got lucky > enough to literally rub elbows with a senior > analyst at the company gym a couple times. His > associate happened to leave in the ensuing two > months after meeting him, he offered me the job, > and I was pumped. However, speaking to the > bureaucracy of big shops like that, my managers in > operations, in addition HR, yes, HR, would not let > me move to research. So, with no prospects for > another job, I quit on the spot. > > After taking level 2 that spring, I wrote > research, modeled and figured things out the best > I could. I sent all my work to bulge brackets - > got a couple bites - but everyone just pushed me > off because I had no experience. Eventually, I > pitched myself into a role at a small research > shop and I’m still here three years later covering > my own space. > > I would have never been able to get an offer at > the bulge bracket, write my own (clearly immature) > research while unemployed, or get my current > position without at least passing level II. > > Life, and most things, are what you make it. For > me, even partial completion of the CFA was a game > changer. I would still be in the back office > hoping for a 100k a year scheduling position like > some of the other guys. > > Hope this gives you some perspective. this only worked because you put in the extra effort of writing research modeling etc…a lot people just want a job handed to them and are too busy posting on the forum instead of taking the initiative…your experience is definately not the rule, but my hat is off to you sir
I got your back BChad @Equivocation “I am not recommending my analysts take the CFA anymore. I tell them to do Level I to get a general sense of finance if anything. How can I recommend that they spend a miniumum of 900 hours (more likely 1,800hr = a full year) studying concepts 50% of which they will never need for their direct job and 40% of which I know to be wrong?” If you think your analysts will actually spend 900 hours studying for the CFA, you probably shouldn’t hire them anyway. I don’t know about you but every one of my self respecting friends got through the program on 500 hrs max and most were closer to 300-400. a small price to pay in order to build a strong understanding of markets. and to be honest, most of the 300-400 hrs would’ve been spent on non-productive activities anyway, such as video games, golf, hockey, drinking, etc… i could honestly say that only maybe 1/4 of those hours would’ve been spent on time with wife, etc… also, to say that Keynesian economics is dead lacks an understanding of Keynesian economics. to say that Austrian economics is live all and end all, also lacks an understanding of Austrian economics. I’m not an expert on either, but I do know that both have their shortcomings when trying to quantify and forecast economic indicators as well as when and if to intervene via central bank. Keynesian and Austrian economic theories have been ebbing and flowing for popularity since Keynes was near finalization of his theory. In order to refute it, Nassim and Mandelbrot must be experts on it. while they were studying it, i doubt they thought it was useless the whole time. i’d bet that they don’t actually think its all hooey either. they seem smarter than that…