Now that the exam is over, I am looking to get into a few things (feel free to let your mind wander with that one…)
Anyway, one of the things is to get better at Excel. I was good at it in college with Excel 03, but with the transition to 07, I became much slower (the hot key switching was a mean trick). Obviously graduating didn’t help; the job I have currently doesn’t involve creating spreadsheets, really just pulling info from spreadsheets. What would be the best version to learn, 2007, or the new ones that have come out since?
Is there any other type of software/programming language that would be useful to learn?
Excel + VBA + SQL would make you a monster. After that things like R or Matlab would be helpful but that’s getting into some fairly niche stuff at that point.
And definately worth getting to know Excel '13. I haven’t used it specifically, but I understand it’s a natural progression from '10, which was more or less the same as '07. Lots of overlap between the three, but obviously '13 has the most features.
If I get a positive email from CFAI in August I plan to bone up on VBA and mySQL. Huge value add. We have quants at my firm that are always looking for R and Matlab but that is too out of my wheelhouse to ever be so proficient in applying it that I’ll get paid for it. Better ROI for me with VBA and SQL. The guys with R and Matlab knowledge who get paid already have engineering degrees at top schools. Whereas VBA and SQL can really add value to a financial analyst’s skill set
Thanks guys! Definitely will look into those. Had never even heard of R before today. Thought what itera wrote was a typo haha. SQL definitely slipped my mind. I’ll focus on those 3 first.
Andy, hopefully I get that same positive email along with you! Hoping this stuff (among others) will help me pass the time until then.
If you want a good guide, try this one (SQL Queries for Mere Mortals). It doesn’t go at all into the database creation/maintenance stuff at all - only on the query part (which is most of what you need).
I haven’t worked through it start to finish but have played around with it. It’s got a good strategy in that it gives you code in small bits then works through what it does a line at a time, but VBA is only the last chunk of the book - most of it focuses on using basic excel, and basic modeling principals (total waste if you’re a half decent excel monkey and passed level 2). You’re paying a lot of money for a small albeit nice focus on VBA.
Personally - there’s gotta be some website out there that lays the groundwork for VBA, and it’s such an easy language that all you need after that is google/mrexcel.com to walk you through it a task at a time. If advanced excel (arrays, index, offset, match, indirect…vlookup?) is a 6 on the scale of difficulty, I’d give VBA a 7.5. The only tricky parts are deciding what’s worth coding in VBA vs. just working through normally, and grasping the logic on how to do some actions (loops and variables can be a headache to someone who hasn’t coded much before, like me).
I find myself relearning VBA each time I need it. The language is pretty simple. The wierd parts are 1) how the “modules” don’t really exist independently of a workbook or document, and 2) the way the “variant” type works.
R is free and cross platform, and unlike several years ago, there are some good introductions to it. R in A Nutshell is one of them. You can also do it totally for free by using online material, but I find a book is useful because it’s easier to jump back and forth.
Matlab requires an expensive license, but there is an open source clone called Octave, which has almost the same syntax and you can use to get started. Some of the paid matlab packages are useful, though, for downloading data from various sources , etc.
Python is also pretty easy to learn and free.
Actually, lots of languages are free now. And the documentation is largely available by google search. When I started programming years ago, people either knew things or they didn’t and you had to go to a library or bookstore or have a smart and non-jerky friend if there was something you didn’t know. It’s probably easier and cheaper to learn programming now than at almost any time in history. However it still takes time to build experience solving programming problems, but you can usually solve problems faster than one used to.
For VBA, Walkenbach’s book is very thorough, and gives a great foundation. Jelen’s VBA book gets you writing interesting stuff earlier, but it jumps around a bit more. So if you want to learn it correctly and get a very thorough gorunding, I’d go with Walkenbach’s book.
Looking to get a job as an equity analyst in the next year or two. currently in the private wealth arena. we use excel but on a basic to intermediate level. I consider myself pretty experienced at using formulas and setting up complex spreadsheets. My question- do equity analysts need to know VBA and SQL or is it mainly working excel to the max? If yes, need to get my training on.
After reading this post, I decided to take a course on Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012. It will start on July, but a pre requisite is to have “working knowledge of relational databases”. How to I get that working knowledge?
Can’t believe no one mentioned SAS. In 2013 if your modeling consists of excel, you are really falling behind. If you work in corporate finance, anyone notice how there are fewer and fewer finance and accounting majors on the floor? More statistics, CSE, and industrial engineers? Ya, its because they build more advanced models, and are also taking your jobs away from you.
In 2013 SAS, and SQL at a bare minimum should be in every finance professionals toolbox.
SAS is really expensive so it can’t be learned away from an office environment that supports it. R is open source and can be easily dabbled with on nights and weekends.
You are right, but of course there are ways around that (I learned as my gf was in school at the time and her school gave away SAS license). Of course R or even SPSS is roughly the same thing, and I agree if you can’t learn SAS learn some new software. I just find it almost disheartening thinking how many finance people are not looking at where their profession is going (at least this is the case at my employer where I constantly remind people how many new hires are actually engineers by background).
Where do you work? I really can’t believe that. Any bank of 25B or more is surely using SAS. Also, I guess it depends on what you do. On my floor we have probably 15 SAS users out of maybe 50 people, and that number increases with every new hire.