My boss just said out load that CFA is a sh*** program, I am not going to get into discussing that. He is big on CFP, maybe he is a CFP himself. He thinks I should do CFP even though I am a CFA charterholder.
I dont plan on staying with this firm, but is there much gain out of doing CFP after CFA, a lot of us are into CFA so our opinions are biased. Maybe someone who has done both or knows the market rep of both? Is the CFP realy more difficult?
Harder? Absolutely not. Practical for a financial advisor, for sure.
CFP is definitely not a harder exam, and having passed CFA exams will (I believe) let you challenge out of portions of the CFP curriculum.
Your boss saying that CFA is a sh** program means he doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about. At best, the CFA is not all that useful for people whose job is to push high-expense mutual funds onto retail investors. By not useful, I mean that there’s a lot of stuff that retail mutual fund pushers don’t need to worry about.
The CFP (as I understand it) has more legal and tax stuff that aren’t really covered in the CFA, because the CFA is designed to be a global program, rather than one tuned to a particular tax and legal code. I believe there is also more discussion of things like insurance and estate planning in the CFP, which is genuinely useful stuff for serving retail investors and wealthy families. Most CFPs don’t need to worry too much about how to value a company or consolidate financial statements of international conglomerates.
It’s quite possible that the CFP is more useful for the stuff that your boss does because of those differences, and there are likely more job opportunities (with lesser upside) for CFPs than CFAs in terms of sheer numbers. If you’ve passed the CFA exams, you are likley to find the CFP exams a walk in the park by contrast, although there are presumably a bunch of tax rules that require lots of memorization.
OP:
What is your current job and role?
The CFP is not harder than the CFA.
When I used to work for a big corporation, they thought PMP or CMA > CFA. It was so hilarious. The only guy I had on my side was this former Navy Seal who had his CFA. Also, there was this Columbia MBA grad that knew of the CFA and its difficulty. Anyway, my former manager hadn’t heard of the CFA and didn’t want to pay 800 bucks in exam fees. I was on L2 at this point and resolved to make him pay. I took my business AmEx and charged the L2 fees to it. I told him that he would have to pay or we could have a talk with his manager to pay. He paid. I lol’ed.
I’ve been thinking about CFP more and more as I look much further down my career path, say +10 years. I’m a fund accountant for an investment manager (our clients are mostly individual investors) and feel that CFP would be a valuable cert if you want to start your own wealth management business. I was thinking something geared towards the local HNW individuals/families.
Anyone in wealth management care to share their thoughts on the value of CFP?
There’s no doubt there are useful tidbits in the CFP, especially if your end game is to run a family office. CFA wont’ cover tax and estate planning at the level you need to be a professional.
I think most of us here generally agree that CFP has it’s uses, but it’s a brand that is heavily diluted and only really useful for retail client-facing people. CFA is more useful for people who actually analyze securities, portfolios, or other investment decision making process.
Where the shots start getting fired is when some idiot spouts off about how difficult or more prestigous the CFP is than the CFA.
Right: CFP is designed for retail investment advisors. CFA is more for people working in the institutional space.
There is a grey area for high net worth individuals where each might be useful, depending on how wealthy they are and whether they are thinking about active vs passive investment strategies. A CFP probably isn’t suitable for doing active management, but a CFA Charterholder probably wouldn’t have the tax strategies, insurance, and estate planning parts down without outside other studies or experience.
Does your boss sell insurance out of a strip mall?
I would be looking at the exit after hearing a comment like his. Yes, CFP is useful if you are a retail financial advisor getting paid from sales and working in those channels. But I assure you that the people who get paid the big bucks to design the products you sell think your boss is an idiot.
The CFA and CFP are great complementary designations for those working in retail in the HNW + market segment. Many private client roles (at a big bank for example) would want you to have a CFP (or PFP) along with the (CIM) or CFA plus work experiecnce. The same would go for discretionary roles at boutique firms who act as a PM on the retail side.
Deciding on whether to pursue the CFP really depends on what exit opportunites the OP is considering, in order to provide more specfic commentary.
Thanks guys, taking into account all the comments I decided not to pursue the CFP. I concluded the guy just hates CFA and wanted to take a stab at it any chance he gets. He sais the material does not reflect the real world and most of it is wrong. I have not found anything yet… So I am not doing anything that guy asks for