TS: I've passed CFA Levels I & II, and I can personally say it's not too difficult if you do the studying, but only if you've done some finance work. If not, it may be greek to you at first, but you can pick it up as you go along. Don't know about Level III, planning to take next year

tan8: I think you can, but to be a CFA charterholder, you need four years professional experience in a relevant field (banking, finance etc), IIRC.

I think some of the posts above could help you make your decision. At the end of the day, it depends on where you want your career to go, in my opinion.

DO you want to be a financial analyst? Or do you want to go into middle/senior management? For the former, CFA is a good starting place. Even for the latter, a CFA course would teach you the necessary skills (project budgeting, funding, accounting) to survive. I have no experience on doing an MBA< but I would think the course would be broader, with competitive analysis, game theory, man-management and things like that, which you would require to go up the management chain.

My 10 sen's worth.

You can do that. With CFA, you'd be more marketable, especially in the finance side. CFA Level I would definitely would help you with a career in investment banking, as it would give you a basic grounding of all the things you need to know.

MBA without management/professional working experience may not be worth as much, IMHO.

This post has been edited by Mayomythical: Oct 29 2009, 12:03 PM

Not really. I started with a degree in law, so it's not impossible. However, it is still a pretty demanding course, especially Levels II and III.

There are three exams for CFA. First time registrants have to pay a registration fee on top of the exam fee for Level I. Subsequent exams, you just have to pay the exam fee. I can't remember the exact amount, but it's definitely more than 1k per exam, but exact amount depend on when you register.. the earlier the cheaper. Level 1 fee (including registration) might be more like 3k++.

You can look it up here. You can register at the links provided as well.

Also, the course is meant for self-study, and the course fees already include the books required. You may want to invest in additional books from Schweser for another 1k+ per level, which make studying a lot easier (the CFA curriculum books are very, very, very long-winded).

Good luck!

Totally objective for Levels I & II.

Structured response and short essay for Level III, I think.

Xuzen, in a way, there is a significant overlap for CFA and CFP, especially on the portfolio managent and wealth advisory parts for CFA (which I guess would make up part of the CFP curriculum).

The difference with CFA is that there are additional materials more relevant to a financial analyst e.g. financial statement analysis, derivatives and alternative investments, stock and fixed income valuation, quants, etc.

Good luck to both Debby and Xuzen in your respective fields. I always think that we should always look to learn new things, 'coz otherwise we're just going to stagnate and go bad.

Yeah, in slightly more than four months I'll be taking the Level III exams, and hopefully pass and become a CFA charterholder.

It's been a long and tiring journey, with two fails along the way..

This post has been edited by Mayomythical: Jan 21 2010, 05:22 PM

Sorry Debbie. My bad.

Anyway, for the CFA, it's not merely for people in the advisory field. Yes, I myself work in investment advisory, but it is equally applicable for investment banking, fund management etc.

These are the main topics that are tested in CFA exams:

Ethics
Quantitative Methods
Economics
Financial Statement Analysis
Corporate Finance
Equity Investments
Fixed Income
Derivative Investments
Portfolio Management

If you want, I could lend you a couple of my CFA books for you to have a taster of what the course is all about.

This post has been edited by Mayomythical: Jan 21 2010, 08:14 PM

The figures I quoted are in RM terms, after converting from USD. The tests are usually held in June (for Levels I, II and III) and Dec (Level I only) in Sunway Exhibition Centre, Sunway Pyramid.

You only get the books on registration for the exams. The exam fees include the cost of the books, so whether it's advisable or not depends on whether you've already decided to take the exams or not.

This post has been edited by Mayomythical: Jan 22 2010, 08:14 AM

Yup, Kasturi is the only one I know that offers tuition for CFA. Of course, this means additional fees on top of the registration & exam fees.

Hi... I never took any classes for my two previous CFA levels. Not planning to take any for Level III either.

By the way, I started with a law degree so one can pick up the skills along the way, if you're diligent and proactive enough. Having said that, it did help that I was a junior at an investment bank at the time, which also meant I had crash courses in accounting and financial analysis on a daily basis!