Anybody have a career related to markets, but no necessarily trading?

[BlueTurtle]

i heard a guy from Yale with a CFA who talked about buying monster. he loved it. for about an hour he went into why it was the greatest buy he has ever seen.

it, of course, tanked.

and this was at a CFA meeting.

CFA is certainly more fun to study for than an MBA, but neither will help at trading.

i know a guy who makes tons of cash and looks at CFA's as a dime-a-dozen. like sheep in his book. he never got an mba or a cfa, just networked, worked in ibanking and developed relationships that gave him hundreds of millions to trade with.

 

[SteveNYC]

Quote from BlueTurtle:

i heard a guy from Yale with a CFA who talked about buying monster. he loved it. for about an hour he went into why it was the greatest buy he has ever seen.

it, of course, tanked.

and this was at a CFA meeting.

CFA is certainly more fun to study for than an MBA, but neither will help at trading.

i know a guy who makes tons of cash and looks at CFA's as a dime-a-dozen. like sheep in his book. he never got an mba or a cfa, just networked, worked in ibanking and developed relationships that gave him hundreds of millions to trade with.

gordon gekko has neither a cfa nor mba. just a city college boy. he made a billion dollars in wall street 2. cfa is junk. ivy mba/ivy ba, bs = 2 thumbs up. roar lion roar. c ya.

 

[pistolpt]

Quote from SteveNYC:

gordon gekko has neither a cfa nor mba. just a city college boy. he made a billion dollars in wall street 2. cfa is junk. ivy mba/ivy ba, bs = 2 thumbs up. roar lion roar. c ya.

pff ivy.

i agree with that one guy though - getting a cfa or mba won't make you a better trader.

 

[SteveNYC]

Quote from pistolpt:

Level 1 is 'easy' - in the fact that if you study enough, you WILL pass.
Levels 2 & 3 are a whole different ball game. Hardest tests I've ever seen in my life, and I've taken actuarial exams.
If you can't pass Level 1 after studying your butt off for 4-6 months, don't bother. You'll never pass Levels 2 & 3.
Check out "analyst forum". That's where all the CFA candidates go. There are so many there that they shut down the site for 2 days during the exam to prevent people talking about it (which is counter-intuitive because it is graded on a kind of curve).

my oh my.....

business exams are not the hardest tests in the world. they are a piece of cake compared to engineering exams. engineering exams are abstract problems written in alien hieroglyphics, if you will.

 

[SteveNYC]

Quote from pistolpt:

pff ivy.

i agree with that one guy though - getting a cfa or mba won't make you a better trader.

it took me decades after ivy graduation to appreciate my ivy education.

but you wouldn't know it unless you go thru the ivy experience.

ivy grad is just better all around on average. didn't know it until decades after i graduated.

the choice between ivy and no ivy is obvious.

 

[newwurldmn]

Quote from BlueTurtle:

i heard a guy from Yale with a CFA who talked about buying monster. he loved it. for about an hour he went into why it was the greatest buy he has ever seen.

it, of course, tanked.

and this was at a CFA meeting.

CFA is certainly more fun to study for than an MBA, but neither will help at trading.

i know a guy who makes tons of cash and looks at CFA's as a dime-a-dozen. like sheep in his book. he never got an mba or a cfa, just networked, worked in ibanking and developed relationships that gave him hundreds of millions to trade with.

I like your logical thinking. CLearly your example with a sample set of one proves ALL guys from Yale are idiots. All CFA candidates are idiots.

 

[pistolpt]

Quote from SteveNYC:

my oh my.....

business exams are not the hardest tests in the world. they are a piece of cake compared to engineering exams. engineering exams are abstract problems written in alien hieroglyphics, if you will.

Try an actuarial exam then...

 

[BlueTurtle]

Quote from newwurldmn:

I like your logical thinking. CLearly your example with a sample set of one proves ALL guys from Yale are idiots. All CFA candidates are idiots.

They showcased a guy from Yale at this annual meeting and his advice was literally to load up the boat on Monster Worldwide, which then traded from like 80 to under 10. A monkey could have probably picked a better stock. And he wanted to keep buying if the stock did fall. lol.

sure, it's only one guy. But we are allowed to make judgments. I've never met anyone from the Fed, but I sure do make judgments on them. Maybe i'll wait until we all have tea. nah.....

 

[FrankSlaughtery]

Quote from pistolpt:

Level 1 is 'easy' - in the fact that if you study enough, you WILL pass.
Levels 2 & 3 are a whole different ball game. Hardest tests I've ever seen in my life, and I've taken actuarial exams.
If you can't pass Level 1 after studying your butt off for 4-6 months, don't bother. You'll never pass Levels 2 & 3.
Check out "analyst forum". That's where all the CFA candidates go. There are so many there that they shut down the site for 2 days during the exam to prevent people talking about it (which is counter-intuitive because it is graded on a kind of curve).

+1. I've passed all three levels (passed each one on first try). as an unpaid commercial, i strongly suggest using stalla study materials. i only read these and they were perfect.

level 2 was the hardest for me b/c accounting is like a third of the test - and i hate accounting! but you just have to suck it up and study.

it's REALLY important to take as many practice tests as you can - esp the ones from the cfa institute. those are the most realistic tests out there.

re cfa making you a better trader - as someone else said it won't. it's funny after passing all three exams i became a technical trader from focusing on fundamentals but that doesn't mean everything i learned is now useless.

re that cfa who rec'd MNST and blew up, one of the reasons i focus on technicals now is that using them along w/ a stop would've prevented that blow up and you actually would've been short the whole way down.

if anyone has any questions re the cfa exam, feel free to pm me. i don't want money or anything - just trying to pay it forward b/c i got so much advice from others when i was studying.

 

[Lornz]

Quote from SteveNYC:

my oh my.....

business exams are not the hardest tests in the world. they are a piece of cake compared to engineering exams. engineering exams are abstract problems written in alien hieroglyphics, if you will.

If engineering is composed of "abstract problems written in alien hieroglyphics", how would you classify real mathematics?