Ha, I remember the brokerage firm i worked for made me do the AAMS. That was a complete joke. It really is sad that there are all these “designations” out there. About 90% of the people in my sales class at this regional brokerage firm were “sleazy sales people” with prior career selling construction equipment, selling jewels, selling used cars. I think maybe one other person is still in the finacial services industry. they just slung a bunch of insurance products and loaded mutual funds until they washed out of the industry.
Bucky, I work with advisors needing the CFP education or Review. The books for the review are different than the books for the education. When you’re originally going through the educational courses you have reading materials that teach you the foundation…for the CFP exam you will need to know how to apply that foundation of knowledge.
Since the CFP exam is not about memorizing definitions it’s not recommended that you just take a bunch of practice quizzes…that will not be sufficient enough. Classes are recommended because the instructors have taken the CFP exam, they teach the education and receive feedback from students, and because there’s no sense in spending months studying incorrectly.
With the Capstone Course being added in 2012 the Exam policy also changed. You can take the exam a maximum of only 5 times and 3 consecutive testing cycles. The Capstone Course should be something a financial planner can get through pretty easily.
I would be more than happy to discuss with you options in preparing for the CFP. My direct number is 877-311-9766.
Let me paraphrase this for you, Bucky.
“Hi! My name is Jen, and I make money by convincing people to sign up for classes to prepare for the CFP. I don’t make any money if you don’t take classes, so my professional recommendation is for you to take classes.”
Ohhhhhh Snap, Boooooom! The CFP is the biggest racket in finance. They make you take required education courses that cost no less than $4.5K and I am sure the CFP board gets a kick back from all the “independent 3rd party educators”. The dues are insane and they make all this money from their certified continuing education. I just got a card in the mail today advertising how CFPs make 30% more, instantly. It is an organization run by retail brokers with a retail broker mentality. I would be embarrased if the CFA ever started advertising that way.
Thanks GM72, Go Packers!
Who’s Jerry?
Don’t mean to bash you, Jen, but you’re probably not the most unbiased person around. And if you read some of my older posts, you’ll see that I’m actually a big proponent of the CFP for those who want to work retail.
It’s cool Greenman72. I speak with people everyday who are going through the education or studying for the exam. Many people are humbled after sitting for and failing the CFP exam because they went in thinking they knew everything based on years of experience.
Just wanted to put my 2 cents in and correct one of the comments made about no repercussions for taking the exam more than 3 times.
Actually, that was an eye-opener.
I’m actually considering the CFP, but that will be in a few years, and after the partners give me a green light to start doing comprehensive financial planning, not just taxes. In the meantime, it’s just tax and valuation.
^ a kind lady
Anyone know of a cheap Capstone online course that can be done before October CFP registration. Now it is required to show evidence of completing the Capstone course at registration.
They’re all expensive. I did the program from the College for Financial Planning. I am sure the CFP board is getting a major kickback from all these Education “Partners”. I think the capstone course from the CFFP is like ~$500 or so. I didn’t have to do the capstone though since I was already signed up before they instituted that rule, but I did complete all the other classes. I have no intention of ever getting the CFP. I just did it to make my last company happy until I found a better job.
Have you already completed the education requirement? Since you are not a charterholder you would also have to complete classes on Insurance, Investments, … , estate planning, etc. Since you are pursuing the CFA charter, I’d avoid bogging yourself down with the CFP. This would be like going to law school and then going back to get your certificate to be a paralegal.
I did. It worked well for me.
I’ve completed my CFA exams and am in the process fulfilling the work requirements. I was hoping to review the CFP material and take the capstone class in the meantime. Does anyone know of a good review book? I can find lots of full review programs but I’d like to just do some review on my own and then take the capstone course. There’s got to be a comprehensive book for under $100.
Also Investopedia seems to have a good deal of information, not sure if i should rely solely on it though.
http://www.investopedia.com/exam-guide/cfp/education/cfp2.asp
There really isn’t a single good book out there to review for the CFP that I have seen. The CFP Board has a book with they’re entire body of knowledge,which I own and is available on amazon, however I would not recommend this book at all. It just skims the surface of each topic and I not well written. I give this book a 1 star out of 10. Link posted below. Save your money and don’t buy it. I bought it hoping it would be a concise study guide when I was doing the core education requirement, but it turned out to be a waste of money and time. The stuff on Investopedia is pretty good though. I did use that material to prep for some of the end of module exams.
Schweser has a prep course for the CFP exam as well as offers the education requirement and capstone course. The CFP is damn expensive.
Well, I just took the CFP exam. It’s a long test - 10 hours and 285 questions over two days (4hrs Fri, 6hrs Sat). I challenged it as a CPA who does valuation and tax, and having passed CFA-L1. Yes, the Capstone course is a new requirement since 2012, found an online course from Ken Zahn out of Univ of Tallahassee ($600), did the whole thing in two weeks before registering Oct 08, then studied about 100 hours using 2009 Kaplan books I found on eBay for $5/ each (5 volumes). The hardest part of the exam is Trusts, OMG, that’s a convoluted part of U.S. business law, which affects estate, retirement and education planning in a major way. It’s good stuff to know if you’re a CPA who does valuation and tax, and advises business owners on succession planning. The CFP material is not hard, but the test is tricky with a lot of multi-choice type questions, such as 1 only, 1-3-4, or 1-2-3-4. The questions are long and wordy, and there are a couple of long case studies. The whole test is way too long, it should only be one day max like the CFA, a bogus attempt to set the bar higher IMO. The scores come out in 5 weeks, that’s one thing they do better than CFA… BTW, the Kaplan books are great, and good sources of material for anyone wanting to know Trust or Estate tax law, I’m going to scan and keep them for reference.
Why would you need a CFP designation after completing the CFA course of study? Waste of any additional time you might have, IMHO.
Admittedly, there are some very applicable subject matters in the CFP that aren’t covered in the CFA program in any real depth, such as retirement planning, tax planning, estate planning, insurance, but honestly, if you are smart enough to complete the CFA program, you should be smart enough to educate yourself on these topics, if needed, without having to do the CFP.
CFA, while admittedly a harder test, doesn’t cover a lot of “real” personal finance. For example, it might talk in general about tax-advantaged accounts and it would cover the calculation on how much a person might save by using them. This is all well and good, but it’s virtually useless. It doesn’t answer any “real” questions that someone might have.
The CFA teaches you to answer such things as “If you hypothetically had $100,000, and the hypothetical tax rate was 40%, and you hypothetically could get a flat 10% on your money every year, how much would that hypothetically save you if you hypothetically had to realize your hypothetical 10% every year over a hypothetical 20-year period?” Knowing how to answer this question is somewhat useless, because of all the “hypotheticals” in it.
Here are “real” questions that the CFP would cover that the CFA would not. (And yes, real-life CFA Charterholders ask these questions all the time, because it has real-life tax consequences on your real-life 1040 that you will really file on April 15, a real tax deadline.)
What is an IRA? What is a Roth IRA? How are they different? How do change from one to the other? What are the contribution limits? What are the income limitations? Which one is better? What is a SEP-IRA? What is a SIMPLE IRA? What is a 401k? What is a Roth 401k? Do you have to take RMD on a Roth 401k? What is an RMD?
And this is just various retirement plans–we haven’t even got to the other 90% of the CFP curriculum.
I bet you I use more of the CFP material in my everyday life than the CFA material.