I am a CPA… Few concerns about the CFA

Well I’ll start with a full discloser here and say that I am currently only a CFA level 1 candidate so more established individuals may disagree with me. I also don’t really believe in technical analysis. If you are looking for a technical investing guide than the CFA is not going to provide you the information you want in my opinion. CFA level 1 only briefly covers the information and due to the belief that technical investing is a bit of a crapshoot to begin with the content kinda brushes it under the rug. If you are interested in understanding fundamental firm analysis than the CFA is great! As I said though I am only a level 1 candidate and think that technical analysis provides about the same good investing advice as a Ouija board so I am biased. Best of luck!

If you’re really interested in doing technical analysis, I’d advise you to go and work for one of the large quant hedge funds. If you’re not a hard core mathematician or a rocket scientist with multiple PhDs or at one of the quant funds, you should probably ask yourself what edge you will have over the massive brainpower and computer banks they’ve got. 

But no, the CFA is probably not for you if it’s technical analysis you’re interested in. 

Technical analysis. Chortle chortle.  😀

Hi liveAvenue,

unfortunately CFA will only give you little help regarding trading technique like Elliot Wave or Fibonacci. They do have a small section on Technical Analysis for CFA lv1, but it’s really far from enough.

If trading is really your passion, why don’t you pursue a CMT or CFTe certification instead? Both offer international certification on Technical Analysis, but CMT is American-oriented, while CFTe is European-oriented. Or even better, you may want to join a trading school to better help shaping your trading mindset. 

If you ask me, both technicians and fundamentalists are actually on the same side. Only those Efficient Market Hypothesis diehards would laugh at technicians or fundamentalists, and believe that TA and/or FA will never beat the market in the long run.

These links might be helpful:
http://www.mta.org/eweb/StartPage.aspx

http://www.ifta.org/

Good luck, brother!

PS: I’m also a CMT candidate, lv2 to be exact. Yes, I believe in both technical and fundamental analysis.

Markets don’t “move” by magic or a set of psychic laws.  Markets move when two parties – a buyer and seller – come together and agree to trade at a price.  The buyer thinks they’re getting a fair deal, as does the seller.  Therein lays the value of F.A.  

If you’re an auditor then you’d probably have a fair bit of practice deciphering balance sheets.  The CFA coursework (in my opinion) provides a fairly rounded explanation of both financial analysis (usual accounting stuff) and how this influences, and is influenced by the broader market (and economy, political factors etc).  

So if you like numbers, strategy, and asking the questions about “how” and “why” things happen, then you have the key skills to become an successful analyst.  In this case you will find great value in learning as much as possible about the “hows” and “whys”.  The CFA consolidates many of the core concepts into 1,000 hours (give or take) or so of study.

If, on the other hand, you believe that prices can be accurately predicted beforehand, knowing nothing about the asset in question and using nothing more than price trends and counting formulas, then the CFA won’t help you.

Disclosure: I have never met a wealthy T.A.