I am in a career dilemma, and need some assistance to find if CFA is ‘THE THING’ I am looking for.
I have a Masters degree in Computer Science from an average school and have been working for about 3 years in Electronic Trading Application Support at a vendor provider. (and over an year earlier as a Systems Analyst)
I am interested in Electronic Trading and want to grow in the area of FIX, FIX ATDL, Algorithmic Trading, STP etc. thinking SVP level
Doing part-time MBA Finance at a decent ranked school like NYU Stern is an option (if not CFA) and get into the big investment banks like JPM, GS etc. who have huge infrastructures already and spend heavily in this area but you have the downside of having $100K+ debt.
Let me know if CFA would make a Sr. Application Support Analyst to VP Electronic Trading at an investment bank.
No one in trading cares about the CFA. In fact, I know employers in the business that discriminate against it because their perception is that the CFA believes in EMH and they don’t want anyone believing in that closer than 100 feet from their office. It’s common for people that apply for trading jobs to remove the CFA from their CV.
That said, pretty weird that a security analysis program would be perceived as an EMH only type credential… Not that what you say isn’t true. Just the program could be a whole lot shorter if it was only manager selection and balancing index funds.
I would recommend a high level graduate degree in math, physics, financial engineering, or perhaps a small number of MS Finance degrees that are highly quantitative/computational.
CFA is basically a portfolio management certification. You need to be able to understand complex mathematical models, and know how to transform them into highly efficient programming.
An additional math or physics degree would be a waste of time/money since he already has a masters in computer science. The usefulness of those degrees is the ability to do high level math and other raw computations. CFA would also be irrelevant to electronic trading, but may be useful for general financial education and credibility if you eventually want to break off on your own.
My recommendation would be to develop a basic trading strategy using some of the techniques you described on your own, then try to use that as a door opener into either a job or a financial engineering program.
