realizing i dont really like what the charter is intended for.
i never read financial statements. i dont build my own models. when i had an interview i began trying to scrap some sort of a recommendation together and realized 1 - i shouldnt have to struggle to find a company to recommend if i truly wanted to do this stuff. 2 - equity research blows (for me, probably due to the lack of passion). i spend 4-5 hrs trying to dissect a company with what i have learned and once again theres not really an obvious answer (which i guess is obvious when you think about it, but still)…some things look good, some things dont…so then it all comes down to spinning it whichever way i want. meanwhile, those are unpaid hours ill never get back.
i like the theory. i like learning about this stuff. i like the quantative side of things.
do i finish since im done with 1/3 and paid for 2/3 and hope that maybe i can leverage the education and experience to work toward more of a risk management type of role? or do i stop and pursue something else?
im not getting any younger and i have no relevant CFA or quant experience. im realizing that the odds of someone who isnt all that passionate who has no experience to leverage breaking in to ER or IB at this point is approaching the limit. i have a family to support and need my career to be gaining traction, not spinning in circles.
Since you paid for Level 2, you might as well give it a shot.
I’m sure you dont’ need to hear, yet again, that it’s a very hard exam and that you need to be very serious about it if you intend to pass. You need to approach the revision like you are hungry to pass, you can’t be wishy washy about it.
I’m in a similar position to you, except I’ve cleared the exams but I can tell you I’m scratching my head too. I do sometimes find myself questioning the meaning of life and wondering where the last 2 years went. I have one ER interview, but not wild about it. What I’ve considered doing is looking at management accounting / corporate finance roles for which my audit background would be more useful. Because there’s capital budgeting and project / scenario analysis involved in these roles, the experience could still count towards earning the charter.
The CFA is intended for use in asset management or research, but to be realistic, my goal now might be to just earn the charter by stringing together relevant experience and then asking HR for a raise because I have those letters next to my name. I probably won’t use the CFA to add value for clients, just to claim a higher salary and let everyone know that I’m a finance guru (which opens up tutoring opportunities).
In short, the CFA could still have uses to you personally outside of ER / IB, but if you have more important priorities like your family and you fail level 2, I’d move on … cuz even if you clear level 3, you could still be scratching your head about what to do next. My honest opinion, but I can be wrong.
I think a lot of people on this site probably feel the same way - I know that I do. Maybe some of the BSDs on here can tell us how they felt about research before they started? Where was your knowledge at then? Where does this fall in the average with your coworkers (only people new to ER not laterals from other companies)? How do you feel now?
I think something that makes a lot of people here do the CFA is the challenge. We also generally like finance/markets or we would not have started. Maybe this isn’t enough to enjoy ER as a career, but I’m sure there are roles that utilize this new knowledge and would make you happy. Have you ever thought about using the CFA to be client facing with less emphasis on analysis and more on relationships?
Always look at opportunity cost. If you dropped the CFA program now (you haven’t taken L2) What would you be doing with that time? and what would come out of it?
As someone said above “The CFA is intended for use in asset management or research” There’s tangential beneifts to other areas of finance sure, but the benefits are much less.
Agree with itera. Sounds like ER or asset management just aren’t something you’re passionate about, which is totally fine. Maybe you’ve already paid for Level 2 or 3 but there are also tremendous opportunity costs associated with studying for the exams. However, if you’re not that passionate about research, what ARE you passionate about? If the answer is “nothing” then perhaps you might as well move forward. They don’t call it a “job” for no reason
I’m pursuing the charter simply becasue I have started it.
Being at a FI HF, I have absolutely no use for it. Only one other person here has it and they are in Cap Intro (so they don’t use if for anything either). My colleagues respect me for going after it, but there is very little value added to any role here in the firm aside from having a charterholder in the firm when investors do DD.
I started this journey when I was at a big bank on the PM track. Eveyone and thier uncle was getting MBA and studying for level I so I jumped on board the bandwagon. Looking back I would have gone after a M.S. in Financial Engineering or something more quant, but I got the MBA. As for the charter, I started it so I will finish it. I have absoluely no desire to be any sort of equity analyst or Investment banker once I pass level III, and at this point it will basically be resume fodder in the event something happens at my current role.
You should just finish the program. Equity research people are not the only people who value the CFA. I’ve been to macro funds and quantitative firms who like to see CFA on the resume of job applicants. These places are filled with people who would otherwise not know how to read any kind of financial statements. To them, doing the CFA means that they can read news and not be completely oblivious about certain ratios or industry related terminology. If you work in some random finance job that is only indirectly related to financial decision makine, the CFA charter will probably still increase your perceived value by a little bit.
I never finished the CFA curriculum but a lot of people in sell-side research had it. I left research to go to private equity where nobody cared about the CFA. I’m now at a long/short equity fund and most people here don’t have it, though some people in the industry do. The thing is, this business is all about understanding how stocks react, how to evaluate good businesses, etc. I’m sure that you can learn a lot from the CFA program but at the end of the day, it’s about making money. If the CFA helps you be better at your job, then great. I feel like the ROI for CFA is highest if you’re trying to break into the biz or for marketing purposes, but beyond that it is all about performance, i.e. generating returns.
Nobody here has asked me to get my CFA; they’d rather that I just focus on picking good stocks.