The old world of investing has lately been crumbling. Passive investment management has captured the bulk of equity inflows, which has fueled remarkable growth in index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Read More
For my entire career as a trader, portfolio manager, and investor, I've relied on a combination of systematic (or rules-based) methodology, fundamental analysis (understanding the trends of significant economic indicators), and technical analysis (the historical review of price data and charts) to understand market trends and actions. The building blocks of successful active management (alpha generation) must incorporate elements of each of these analysis tools.
Read More
You spend six months ignoring your family, blowing off close friends’ weddings, and generally being an irritable pain in the butt. When your friends see you, the first question they ask is, “How’s CFA studying going?” because they know you have nothing else more important going on in your life. At least all your hard work pays off, right?
Read More
Everyone feels stress and pressure in any significant contest. Prepared or not, when the chips are down we all feel our adrenaline rise. Y
Read More
Anyone who starts working toward the CFA charter has heard stories of people with a PhD in finance or even professors who fail the Level I exam. There are multiple reasons for this, in my opinion.
Read More
Taking the CFA Level I exam when you’ve got no financial background can be a daunting task. In fact, it can seem downright impossible to pass when you have nothing to go on.
Read More
In contrast to the externally imposed regulatory standards in the insurance and banking industries, investment risk management requirements for investment companies had been largely self-imposed until last October, when the SEC voted to adopt rules to modernize reporting and disclosure of information. This move is meant to enhance liquidity risk management of open-end funds.
Read More
Benjamin Graham made the call for a special professional rating for security analysts in a now-famous piece written in January 1945. The purpose of such a designation was to reassure investors that those giving advice regarding security transactions were qualified, knowledgeable professionals with high ethical standards.
Read More
The new 2022 CFA curriculum has been released for all 3 levels. This article will summarize all of the important changes to the curriculum and how it affects your preparation.
Read More
Risk management is an important feature of the CFA® exams. Since many candidates work for or aspire to work for banks, an understanding of credit risk is critical, simply because credit risk is the main risk-exposure element of the vast majority of banks in any country.
Read More
After the announcement of Panera’s deal to be taken private by JAB Holdings in April 2017, the company was quick to tout the benefits of exiting the public markets.
Read More
During the Great Recession, a handful of major banking institutions put national economies at risk. To avoid economic collapse, governments stepped in, which cost taxpayers dearly. To prevent a reoccurrence, Basel III was developed to force banks to manage their risks more prudently.
Read More
Now that this decade has come to an end, it is almost unimaginable to look back to its beginning—in a world directly post-GFC—and believe the incredible run seen from practically every asset class since. Most investors who have participated in any market besides cash have done quite well since those 2009 lows.
Read More
If you are involved in the banking industry or in the CFA® Program, you have probably heard of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor). Libor has long been the gold standard benchmark rate in the markets, which is why it is estimated that $200 trillion in US securities are tied to that rate.
Read More
It is important for CFA® charterholders and candidates to understand the foundations of global banking regulation, currently within the framework of Basel III. This third iteration of the framework has built upon Basel I and II by mandating reinforced and stronger capital ratios and higher-quality capital, and supplementing capital requirements with leverage ratio and minimum liquidity requirements.
Read More
There are a number of threats facing the international banking system; however, the greatest risk is the amount of debt that has been accumulated around the globe.
Read More
Active fixed-income management may be more relevant than ever in the current environment.
Read More
As an investor, I’ve always fancied myself as a contrarian who goes against the crowd, someone who can detect patterns and notice minutiae where others can’t. Perhaps that’s why at the age of 27, while my friends and peers were content with gifting one of their two monthly paychecks to their landlord, I became a first-time homebuyer.
Read More
I certainly had more questions than answers when beginning my journey, but after going through it, I figured out what was truly important and what isn’t. I hope to shed some light on what you need to know before embarking on the path to becoming a CFA charterholder and I will also highlight some common misconceptions.
Read More
Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation of an established design…” Yet, financial bubbles keep occurring due to “...the brevity of the financial memory.
Read More