www.krohneducat... Discusses the main differences between the M.S. in Math Finance and the CFA Program. Also discusses the use of CFA vs. M.S. in job interviews.
Very informative and well balanced. Nobody should be confused about choosing the courses as with MS course, one has much higher costs associated with it and at the same time, one has to stay away from the job. CFA gives little less depth at a much lower cost. Thus both has got its own pros and cons.
haha, how funny. I got a MsC math finance/econ hybrid, worked in mortgage backed securities for a while, then became a high school teacher. Opposite of your path.
@@karag4487 i studied quantitative finance at university of kiel in Germany. CFA wasn't challenging in terms of difficulty. The real challenge was finding some free time to prepare for the exam since i was working full time. CFA will challenge you with its sheer volume of meterials that you have study. On the other hand, quantitative finance will challenge you mathematically in the exam since it's a master in applied mathematics. Some problems were so complex and abstract that even the professors with double phd got confused while explaining them.
Geographical limitations are lessening somewhat over time, if you choose to pursue a distance based program. There are now several M.S. financial engineering/financial math programs you can can take completely online - Stevens Institute, Washington, USC, IIT, John's Hopkins, Columbia, etc.
It is an odd comparison to be honest. One is a designation that confirms your knowledge in specific subject matters like equity, corp fin etc. While financial engineering is a degree course and more about how financial products are created and the risks associated with them. If you truly are looking to get down and dirty in the quant side of things and don't have or have little background in the field then CFA won't help. You would need to go back to school for that. CFA is beneficial if you already have a solid business background and are looking to up your game in say investment banking or corp fin etc. It helps a lot, plus your pay goes way up if you have an MBA and CFA.
Krohn - Education our program mainly focused on stochastic calculus and how to correct the black Scholes model. So it was more focused on derivative engineering.
I think you're looking at this through the career options you are interested in. Obviously if you want to do something risk management related you'll need a quantitative financial background, i.e your master's program. The CFA is meant more for traditional financial careers, i.e financial analyst at an IB. I'm currently a credit analyst and the only relevant section of the CFA to me is the accounting.
A CFA holder will most likely become a (portfolio, asset, etc.) manager since this program is intended to be focus on corporate finance (specially valuation) and investment. A Master's in Financial Math or related fields is basically expected to become quant or overall, a financial risk professional. While a CFA knows how to compute the CAPM, WACC and related formulas for one company at a time, a quant is expected to drill down in the behavior of massive data (for example, come up with a model to value a loan portfolio in stress scenarios depending on a diverse range of discount rates).
@@krohn-education3906 Hi. I'm a risk analyst and self-thought programmer. I have a Masters degree in Finance. I enrolled last year in the FRM program, but due the whole covid scenario, I wasn't able to fly overseas and take a sit for the first exam. I'm planning on enrolling again, but also I have a special interest in getting a second Masters degree in Applied Math at a local public university. I recommend you to also check out two other programs that might be pricey, but still cheaper than a masters degree in the US: the ARPM and the CQF. Both are quant oriented. There is a third one that is completely focus in algo trading: EPAT. The CFA is the gold standard within the financial and banking industry for managing positions, however it's important to consider that STEM skills are highly demanded in almost any industry. Also, your quant skills are useful anywhere since all companies, in a way, are becoming or will become a fintech and they all need to manage risk. There are a few studies that demonstrate how during the last 15 years Fortune 500 CEOs have shifted from having business backgrounds to have STEM education. Just take a look at the most notorious CEOs in big tech and financial services. I consider CFA to be more business related but, of course, if you have both (business + STEM) then no one could stop you. Cheers from Panama.
@@rodolfoblasser3329 Thanks for the comment - I have my M.S. in Math Finance and will be taking CFA III in 2022. I agree - the combination of the two will be valuable.
@@Mohammed-cv6rr completely agree. Both Master of Science degrees and CFA are difficult, but for far different reasons. University demands a deeper level of understanding. CFA simply requires a significant amount of process and fact memorization
Whoa that is a crazy coincidence... I graduated from University of North Carolina, Charlotte as well. December 2013. I remember that assignment in Financial Econometrics. Do they have Dr. Clarke or Dr. Kirby teaching that class these days?
Oh man, I thought financial econometrics was a piece of cake, but maybe that's just because I enjoyed it so much. From UNCC's curriculum, that's probably the most "practical" course where you're doing stuff exactly as it's being practiced in industry and that you could hypothetically trade on. Stochastic Calculus was very hard, but the hardest class at UNCC was definitely graduate microeconomic theory with Shapiro. Are you on the job market yet? Most of my classmates who went to Wells/BB&T/BofA disliked it a lot; really monotonous and unstimulating work. A lot of them quit and went back to China. The folks who landed at smaller firms seemed to do better and have higher retention. Hope you enjoyed/are enjoying the program and good luck with your future career. Cheers for uploading these videos, too.
Great video! One question I would like to ask is that if you need a bachelors degree in Mathematics/Applied Mathematics/Computer science/Physics...sort of majors in order to apply for the Math Finance program? Thanks!
CFA is for the valuations only...again it won't teach you the financial modelling or any kind of Financial Software to work or anything, Companies spend a lot on training for their employees, So I don't think there is a need for any programming in CFA curriculum.
Isn't CFA and Ms financial mathematics for 2 different things, CFA is for corporate finance, and Ms financial maths or financial engineering is for investment banking, risk management? Can a person even get into investment banking or risk management with CFA? Ps: very good video, what you deduced at the end is true.
I've been working in a few different areas since I made this video, and I'd say that I largely agree with your statement above (i.e., for 2 different things), with the exception that I think both could be used to go into portfolio management. My M.S. in Math Finance involved pricing derivatives and bonds and would be well suited for moving into investment management. There was a lot of overlap in the M.S.'s derivative and fixed income areas with the CFA. CFA just didn't have as much statistics as the M.S. At the end of the day, if you want to do portfolio management or corporate finance, I'd probably get CFA. If you know you want to work in model development or model validation, a financial engineering degree is a better option. Regardless, I think either path will give you the flexibility to do what you want if you work hard and move around the industry.
I don't have a background in Maths. I realise how challenging this proposition is but if I clear the Math GRE test, will I then be able to get into MFE programs? My background is in Business.
Not comparable. Masters in financial maths is far far harder and deeper in knowledge. CFA is just mid level undergraduate difficulty of questions. Not designed to be difficult but just broad with a lot to remember. Is an overview of markets. Can not really compare them.
You don’t need a masters degree to learn practical implementation for regression analysis. CFA provide you with the tools in level 1 and interpreting the outcomes in level 2. CFA is a post graduate degree and assumes that you already have the knowledge in these fields. In case you don’t, then a master will fit you better
Hello there! Great vid. I will start my math finance master program at NYU this fall and I want to ask do you think taking CFA would have any advantages in job searching or in practice when you have already in a math finance program, or would the time used to prepare for it worths the extra return?
I have now passed CFA 1 and will have my Master's this Fall. The only advantage I see to having CFA on my resume is that it does open to the door to more jobs if you are not specifically set on quant. In fact, Wells now has a whole wealth management track built around CFA.
Thanks for these useful tips, I have got my master of finance degree from the university of Melbourne already , do u think to pursuit CFAs full designation is gonna be redundant for career development perspective, cause there’s high degre of overlap between these two
Lucy Wong Thanks for replying Lucy, could you please give me few examples if it’s okay, like which kinds of jobs good for msf and which kind of jo good for CFA? Thanks
Can i ask which MS finance program you attended? I am going through difficult times getting into the Mathematical finance program as a ‘non’ quantitative background student. Given that you were trying to change your career, I think you might have some same difficulties that I am going through while choosing an appropriate master program.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte - I think it's a difficult program regardless of where you go. I had some brief difficulties in my first semester and ended up withdrawing from a course to lighten my load. No issues afterward though. I had a pretty good understanding of most programming languages headed into the program and I think that helped me quite a bit.
Krohn - Education Thanks for your detailed answer. To the best of my understanding, you already had had a good understanding on C language at the time you registered for a Master program? I am quite not prepared regarding C language or math kind of stuff. So am worrying if I could be accepted or not at the first place.
Thanks for the video! very informative. I am in a similar situation deciding on which path to take. Does the prestige of the school you do you quantitative finance masters matter to land a job a good bank/hedge fund?
Yes - the university matters. I worked for a bank that wouldn't even recruit from Ivy league universities because they knew they couldn't pay enough. If you can go Ivy league for graduate school and still get decent grades, do it.
which european University would you suggest for a masters in financial engineering? Also, is there a difference between quantitative finance and financial engineering?
Does the Masters program cover the other aspects of Financial Modelling like Income Statement and Balance Sheet forecast? I can see that it covers forecasting prices, risk, etc.
I think that would largely depend upon the Master's program and the concentration you select. The master's program I was a part of did not specifically cover this, but rather focused on the statistics knowledge needed to do time series and cross section modeling. I would think that after studying volatility modeling and other econometric models that income statement and balance sheet forecasting wouldn't be a difficult transition.
This video is very much made for me. I have got scholarship from CFA for level 1 and I have applied for "master in quantitative finance".
Very informative and well balanced. Nobody should be confused about choosing the courses as with MS course, one has much higher costs associated with it and at the same time, one has to stay away from the job. CFA gives little less depth at a much lower cost. Thus both has got its own pros and cons.
haha, how funny. I got a MsC math finance/econ hybrid, worked in mortgage backed securities for a while, then became a high school teacher. Opposite of your path.
@Harry Smith fulfillment and less stressful
I did both. CFA for me was like 100 meters broad but only 10 metres deep. And my MSc quant. finance was like 100 meters deep and 100 metres broad.
Can you say what you liked the most and the least for both? Also where did you study?
@@karag4487 i studied quantitative finance at university of kiel in Germany. CFA wasn't challenging in terms of difficulty. The real challenge was finding some free time to prepare for the exam since i was working full time. CFA will challenge you with its sheer volume of meterials that you have study. On the other hand, quantitative finance will challenge you mathematically in the exam since it's a master in applied mathematics. Some problems were so complex and abstract that even the professors with double phd got confused while explaining them.
Geographical limitations are lessening somewhat over time, if you choose to pursue a distance based program. There are now several M.S. financial engineering/financial math programs you can can take completely online - Stevens Institute, Washington, USC, IIT, John's Hopkins, Columbia, etc.
It is an odd comparison to be honest. One is a designation that confirms your knowledge in specific subject matters like equity, corp fin etc. While financial engineering is a degree course and more about how financial products are created and the risks associated with them. If you truly are looking to get down and dirty in the quant side of things and don't have or have little background in the field then CFA won't help. You would need to go back to school for that. CFA is beneficial if you already have a solid business background and are looking to up your game in say investment banking or corp fin etc. It helps a lot, plus your pay goes way up if you have an MBA and CFA.
Which concentration did you end up doing an UNCC? It seems my experience at Michigan was quite a bit different from yours.
I did risk management. What was from your curriculum?
Krohn - Education our program mainly focused on stochastic calculus and how to correct the black Scholes model. So it was more focused on derivative engineering.
We had the option to go farther with derivatives, but I opted not to. Had I taken another track, our experience may have been more similar.
I think you're looking at this through the career options you are interested in. Obviously if you want to do something risk management related you'll need a quantitative financial background, i.e your master's program. The CFA is meant more for traditional financial careers, i.e financial analyst at an IB.
I'm currently a credit analyst and the only relevant section of the CFA to me is the accounting.
A CFA holder will most likely become a (portfolio, asset, etc.) manager since this program is intended to be focus on corporate finance (specially valuation) and investment.
A Master's in Financial Math or related fields is basically expected to become quant or overall, a financial risk professional.
While a CFA knows how to compute the CAPM, WACC and related formulas for one company at a time, a quant is expected to drill down in the behavior of massive data (for example, come up with a model to value a loan portfolio in stress scenarios depending on a diverse range of discount rates).
Thanks for the comment. What's your work experience background?
@@krohn-education3906 Hi. I'm a risk analyst and self-thought programmer. I have a Masters degree in Finance.
I enrolled last year in the FRM program, but due the whole covid scenario, I wasn't able to fly overseas and take a sit for the first exam.
I'm planning on enrolling again, but also I have a special interest in getting a second Masters degree in Applied Math at a local public university.
I recommend you to also check out two other programs that might be pricey, but still cheaper than a masters degree in the US: the ARPM and the CQF.
Both are quant oriented. There is a third one that is completely focus in algo trading: EPAT.
The CFA is the gold standard within the financial and banking industry for managing positions, however it's important to consider that STEM skills are highly demanded in almost any industry. Also, your quant skills are useful anywhere since all companies, in a way, are becoming or will become a fintech and they all need to manage risk.
There are a few studies that demonstrate how during the last 15 years Fortune 500 CEOs have shifted from having business backgrounds to have STEM education. Just take a look at the most notorious CEOs in big tech and financial services.
I consider CFA to be more business related but, of course, if you have both (business + STEM) then no one could stop you.
Cheers from Panama.
@@rodolfoblasser3329 Thanks for the comment - I have my M.S. in Math Finance and will be taking CFA III in 2022. I agree - the combination of the two will be valuable.
@@Mohammed-cv6rr completely agree. Both Master of Science degrees and CFA are difficult, but for far different reasons. University demands a deeper level of understanding. CFA simply requires a significant amount of process and fact memorization
Whoa that is a crazy coincidence... I graduated from University of North Carolina, Charlotte as well. December 2013. I remember that assignment in Financial Econometrics. Do they have Dr. Clarke or Dr. Kirby teaching that class these days?
Yes. Dr. Kirby's econometrics class is still one of the most difficult courses in the program lol. Dr. Clarke is still teaching derivatives.
Oh man, I thought financial econometrics was a piece of cake, but maybe that's just because I enjoyed it so much. From UNCC's curriculum, that's probably the most "practical" course where you're doing stuff exactly as it's being practiced in industry and that you could hypothetically trade on. Stochastic Calculus was very hard, but the hardest class at UNCC was definitely graduate microeconomic theory with Shapiro.
Are you on the job market yet? Most of my classmates who went to Wells/BB&T/BofA disliked it a lot; really monotonous and unstimulating work. A lot of them quit and went back to China. The folks who landed at smaller firms seemed to do better and have higher retention.
Hope you enjoyed/are enjoying the program and good luck with your future career. Cheers for uploading these videos, too.
To keep things inexpensive, one can pursue FRM and other online course on quants Statistics/Mathematics and most importantly programming.
Unlike MSc math finance FRM doesn't test your mathematical ability. It just gives you an intuitive understanding of mathmatical models.
Great video! One question I would like to ask is that if you need a bachelors degree in Mathematics/Applied Mathematics/Computer science/Physics...sort of majors in order to apply for the Math Finance program? Thanks!
Thankyou for the video !!
CFA is for the valuations only...again it won't teach you the financial modelling or any kind of Financial Software to work or anything, Companies spend a lot on training for their employees, So I don't think there is a need for any programming in CFA curriculum.
Heyy make a video on diff b/w ms in math finace & financial engineering
They are the same degree
Isn't CFA and Ms financial mathematics for 2 different things, CFA is for corporate finance, and Ms financial maths or financial engineering is for investment banking, risk management?
Can a person even get into investment banking or risk management with CFA?
Ps: very good video, what you deduced at the end is true.
I've been working in a few different areas since I made this video, and I'd say that I largely agree with your statement above (i.e., for 2 different things), with the exception that I think both could be used to go into portfolio management. My M.S. in Math Finance involved pricing derivatives and bonds and would be well suited for moving into investment management. There was a lot of overlap in the M.S.'s derivative and fixed income areas with the CFA. CFA just didn't have as much statistics as the M.S. At the end of the day, if you want to do portfolio management or corporate finance, I'd probably get CFA. If you know you want to work in model development or model validation, a financial engineering degree is a better option. Regardless, I think either path will give you the flexibility to do what you want if you work hard and move around the industry.
I don't have a background in Maths. I realise how challenging this proposition is but if I clear the Math GRE test, will I then be able to get into MFE programs? My background is in Business.
Not comparable. Masters in financial maths is far far harder and deeper in knowledge. CFA is just mid level undergraduate difficulty of questions. Not designed to be difficult but just broad with a lot to remember. Is an overview of markets. Can not really compare them.
Great video. but I just wonder if it is possible to do both at the same time?
It is. I completed CFA Level 1 in the middle of my Master's program. I have now completed the Master's program and am working toward CFA Level 2.
I will be doing this in 2019. Both at the same time.
You don’t need a masters degree to learn practical implementation for regression analysis. CFA provide you with the tools in level 1 and interpreting the outcomes in level 2. CFA is a post graduate degree and assumes that you already have the knowledge in these fields. In case you don’t, then a master will fit you better
Hello there! Great vid. I will start my math finance master program at NYU this fall and I want to ask do you think taking CFA would have any advantages in job searching or in practice when you have already in a math finance program, or would the time used to prepare for it worths the extra return?
I have now passed CFA 1 and will have my Master's this Fall. The only advantage I see to having CFA on my resume is that it does open to the door to more jobs if you are not specifically set on quant. In fact, Wells now has a whole wealth management track built around CFA.
This is very helpful. I do feel that quant career path is somewhat too narrow, especially tradition Q quant. Anyway thanks for the input!
@@llevine6510Why did you take Math Finance instead of Financial engineering
@@morningstar3437 applied for both, there is no difference
@@morningstar3437 Because Courant is better than Tandon
Thanks for these useful tips, I have got my master of finance degree from the university of Melbourne already , do u think to pursuit CFAs full designation is gonna be redundant for career development perspective, cause there’s high degre of overlap between these two
Depends which area of career you are in. Masters is much deeper and CFA is not hard just broader and less complex questions.
Lucy Wong Thanks for replying Lucy, could you please give me few examples if it’s okay, like which kinds of jobs good for msf and which kind of jo good for CFA? Thanks
Can i ask which MS finance program you attended? I am going through difficult times getting into the Mathematical finance program as a ‘non’ quantitative background student. Given that you were trying to change your career, I think you might have some same difficulties that I am going through while choosing an appropriate master program.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte - I think it's a difficult program regardless of where you go. I had some brief difficulties in my first semester and ended up withdrawing from a course to lighten my load. No issues afterward though. I had a pretty good understanding of most programming languages headed into the program and I think that helped me quite a bit.
Krohn - Education Thanks for your detailed answer. To the best of my understanding, you already had had a good understanding on C language at the time you registered for a Master program? I am quite not prepared regarding C language or math kind of stuff. So am worrying if I could be accepted or not at the first place.
Hey thanks for the video,it was really descriptive.What qualification do I need To persue this course ?
Which course?
hey
Hello.. Could you tell me if there are any differences in financial engineering and Fintech courses?? and if yes, how much different are they??
yes FE compares with CQF
Thanks for the video! very informative. I am in a similar situation deciding on which path to take. Does the prestige of the school you do you quantitative finance masters matter to land a job a good bank/hedge fund?
Yes - the university matters. I worked for a bank that wouldn't even recruit from Ivy league universities because they knew they couldn't pay enough. If you can go Ivy league for graduate school and still get decent grades, do it.
which european University would you suggest for a masters in financial engineering? Also, is there a difference between quantitative finance and financial engineering?
.
Does the Masters program cover the other aspects of Financial Modelling like Income Statement and Balance Sheet forecast? I can see that it covers forecasting prices, risk, etc.
I think that would largely depend upon the Master's program and the concentration you select. The master's program I was a part of did not specifically cover this, but rather focused on the statistics knowledge needed to do time series and cross section modeling. I would think that after studying volatility modeling and other econometric models that income statement and balance sheet forecasting wouldn't be a difficult transition.
Krohn - Education Thanks for the quick reply.