Does anyone have their CFA designation?
 

does anyone here have their CFA designation?? If so was it worth it? How tough was it?

Finished mine a couple of years ago.

It's hard but if you know how to study and prepare for it, it is not impossible.

My first exam, everyone walked into the exam thinking they would ace it.

During the first exam, this one girl started crying. When we all finished, everyone was sure they failed, myself included. The first two exams are the hardest because you don't really know where you stand after you write.

The third exam is a bit better in that you have a pretty good idea what's going on by that point.

As far as the course being useful, it depends on what your goal is. For me, it was useless and a waste of time career wise although it does expand your mind a lot. It will help you get in the door if you're going down the finance road but unless you want to be locked in a room as a researcher or numbers cruncher, it's pointless.

Everyone says you need it to be a fund manager. If you want to be a good fund manager, make good trades. The CFA only shows you how to value a company or how to look for that value. It doesn't necessarily prepare you to be a good manager.

The industry is all who you know anyway. That said, if you look at many of the managers, they all have their MBA/CFA. Most of them are morons that can't even outperform the market.

It probably sounds like I'm bashing the program which I'm not, but too many people think the CFA is the ticket to being a hedge fund manager making millions a year. It isn't.

would you have any more advice on "how" to study and prepare for it? thanks

Do a lot of practice ;]
If you studied finance in university, the CFA feels a little easier than what you would expect for the actual CFA exam.

I thought Chuck Norris doesn't need to study, books study him.

hmm
It would help

i think if you wanted to be a hedge fund manager, you would have a better chance of success if you were a day trader.

^ It's all who you know in combination with being a great trader (not so much a day trader).

Typically, with a CFA, you end up being shoved in a room with mountains of papers about a company and someone will say to you "Figure this out!" then slam the door. Companies these days are always trying to make themselves look great, essentially by doing complicated and fancy accounting. Your job as a CFA is to look at the paperwork and make an educated report on what the truth is. Once you have discovered the truth about the balance sheets, you submit a report stating that company XYZ is ___________.

It is this report that the money manager looks at when making a choice. The money manager still pulls the trigger but does so based on what he feels is right and having a team of people doing the tedious research makes it much easier and faster.

When I took the CFA, I had the initial illusion that it would make me a great market maker and stock trader with the key to riches. It is not like that at all. A CFA is a financial analyst which is someone who learns tools to uncover the secrets that companies try to hide in the hope nobody will notice.

If companies were all made to do things the same way with basic accounting, the CFA would be pointless as any good CA could report on if the company was in good shape or not. Companies purposely try and make their accounting as complicated as possible to make themselves look good. A CFA is more like a financial detective.

Due to what my expectations were for the program (to be a better trader) I was disappointed which is why whenever I speak of it, it sounds like I'm talking trash about it.

If you enjoy studying, that's what your job will be like.

As for how to study, if you don't already have really solid study habits then you'll be in for a wake up call. The material are difficult and the exams are on a curve. You write at the same time as all the mathematicians in Asia and Europe. Practice questions work the best for me when I study but being great active reader is by far the best. No two people study the same way so you need to already know what works best. I took finance at SFU before hand and my last two years average was over 90% (my first two years is another story :( ). I also was working in the industry as a planner which I thought would help but it didn't. The CFA requires you have a undergrad because if you go into it without proven solid study habits, you will fail.

If you're interested in being a money manager, you can be a CFA for 30 years or so and you might get the chance but it's very unlikely. There are other ways to get there that are more reliable but just as hard.

thanks chuck
maybe i'll just stick with a CA CGA CMA designation for now..

it's true what you say though
haha no matter what kind of finance field you get into.. it won't prepare you for trading.. i don't think anyone can beat the market

I can't see becoming a CFA hurt your chance of becoming a better trader. Sure you probably won't be making millions of dollar trading as a bond trader or futures trader on the floor but you probably won't be as stressed as those guy either.

Doesn't a CFA with 10+ years in the industry makes way more than a CA can ever dream of? If you combine the fundamental analysis you get out of CFA and plus some chart reading skills you learn on your own your success rate as trader probably go up to at least 80%.

The CFA will never hurt you directly. The problem is while the CFA is correct in how to value companies, it ignores the way the market moves. Essentially, the market is a product of human behavior and manipulation. The CFA is only good to see where a company is at compared to where they say it is at. Nothing more. Investing is a whole different game on top of that.

Stress is hard to measure. For example. Are you more stressed in a high paying job with lots of responsibilities and high pay or are you stressed out in a non-stressful job but you're worried about job security? Stress is part of life. I would agree that a floor trader is going to burn out pretty fast compared to typical CFA valuing a company.

CFA has the potential to earn 7 or 8 figures but again, that's not the norm so anyone who is taking the CFA hoping they will make that kind of money, you had better have a solid game plan. Typically, those CFA's open a new fund company and are partners in the firm.

A CFA is far more difficult to get than a CGA / CA however your income is relative to how smart you are. There are CGA's making $500k a year and others making $30k a year.

If you're doing it just for the money, don't bother with the CFA. If you have an interest in what it stands for and the jobs associated with it, I think that's awesome and you should go for it!

you make it sound like CA is a 'back up' career choice - trust me, mate, CA is as equally tough as the CFA

i really think you should figure out what you want before you enter any of these desginations - all are good, but you don't want to enter the hell that is becoming a CA or CFA unless you're willing to follow through and put in 100% for 2.5 years of your life

haha that did sound like a backup plan

yah
the CA program is really hard i heard

it's not that hard per say, but some people said they would rather have their balls cut off.

All of those programs are tricky, the CA/CFA especially but it's no different than going to law school or an MBA program or whatever.

Just be prepared to have no life for a few years and then you'll be done. Looking back it was worth it but when your friends are telling you to come out and they are hanging around with blonds with fake boobs it makes it difficult.

But now my bank account owns their family's so I'm guessing I could bang most of their mom's and sister's now.

Work hard, it pays off ;)

LOL I just finished 2 of 3 day exam!!



I wanna cry :cry:

:rofl::rofl: