The Complete Beginner’s Guide to the CAIA Exam

Has anyone here taken or started this course?

I am a CAIA charterholder and I can tell you that it does get noticed, but as of now it tends to get the most notice in very specific cities (I live in Boston and you see it everywhere…not so much out west), and it’s definitely a case where some firms value it much more than others.

I look at it like getting in on the ground floor–like any major designation, it’s only going to get more difficult to attain over time (remember when the CFA pass rates were approaching 60% about 10-15 years ago? Good luck with that now) so as the interest and membership increases, and this one’s picking up pretty rapidly IMO, it’s going to be one of those things you wish you did between bouts of CFA exams so to me, it’s definitely worth pursuing.

My $.02

Would this be a useful add on after completing all the CFA exams?

@hairfyfairy it stands for Chartered Business Valuators practicing in the area of business valuation and litigation support.

This is interesting, I didn’t even know it existed! My guess @RoyD would be that it would be more valuable to go get actual ALT Inv work experience after getting your CFA than to do the schooling. I would assume this is more of an alternative route to the CFA if you know for sure you want to work in that realm. But interested to hear others opinions…

From what I learnt in Level 1 AI didn’t really catch my interest much. My professor from back in college told me that FRM is a good add on to the CFA charter and it would be easier to pass that if I had already passed all 3 Levels of CFA. I am currently studying for my Level 2 CFA Exam and am looking for add ons after Level 3. Not really keen on something too hard or challenging though. Any advice?

I’ve got colleagues who’ve taken both CFA and CAIA, as well as CAIA instead of CFA. I’ve not properly considered it myself, but generally taken by people who are either keen to expand their options or go into alternative investments. The ones who do both do tend to be top performers in my firm, but that’s probably correlation rather than causation.

@Royd Depends on what you want to do in your career. A know a guy who did the CBV after the CFA, I think that combo would be quite valuable, again depending on your career path.

Don’t take it the wrong way, but anything that isn’t very hard or challenging, probably won’t be that valuable of an add on IMO.

@InstantClassic is it hard? I’m thinking of going for it. Am taking some time off from my job and thought it might be fun. 🙂

@WesMantooth what is the CBV? I’ve not heard of it.

what is the time limit for each level for CAIA . thx