2008 July Media Highlights

A sampling of news coverage with links as available

31 July 2008
The Nation
CFAAP Holds Seminar
Excerpt:  The CFA Association of Pakistan (CFAAP) held a seminar on the topic of “What’s Emerging in Emerging Markets − the beauty contest” recently.  Addressing the gathering was Lawrence Speidell, CFA, an emerging market specialist, based out of California.

30 July 2008
AV-Finance.DE
Financial Crisis Primarily a Result of Insufficient Risk Management
Excerpt: (Translation) At a press event by the German CFA Society, Liesel Knorr, president of Deutscher Standardisierungsrat (DSR), Andreas Creutzmann, Head of IACVA-Germany, and Nitin Mehta, CFA Institute managing director of the EMEA region, discussed failures in the management of financial derivates and challenges for financial reporting in illiquid markets.

30 July 2008
Accountancy Age, Financial Director
SEC Demands Halt to Fair Value Changes
Excerpt:  "We think the discussions [in the final report] will slow down the process in moving toward fair value," Glenn Doggett, a policy analyst at CFA Institute, told Financial Week.

29 July 2008
Chicago Tribune
Even the Pros May Be Stuffing the Mattresses
Excerpt: If you saw dark clouds drifting from St. Charles last week, they were probably coming from the dreary mood at the CFA Institute's annual investment seminar for professional investment managers.

29 July 2008
The Daily News Online
Finding Advice in These Turbulent Times
Excerpt: Credentials and experience are important, too. The two strongest credentials in the personal investment field are Certified Financial Planner or CFP and Chartered Financial Analyst or CFA. All of these "C" credentials start sounding the same, but they are not. Remember, CPA stands for Certified Public Accountant, which is somebody whose specialty is taxation, not investments.

28 July 2008
Manila Bulletin
CFA Phils. Helps Universities Develop Finance Curriculum
Excerpt: CFA Philippines recently granted complimentary sets of the CFA curriculum development package to 45 universities from all over the Philippines.

28 July 2008
Reuters
Watchdogs to Beef up Rating Agency Code Compliance
Excerpt: They have also been criticised by some for a perceived lack of independence. A survey of investment professionals published this month by the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute said 211 of 1,956 respondents had witnessed a rating agency change its rating in response to pressure from an investor, issuer or underwriter.

28 July 2008
Financial Week
SEC Accounting Panel to Seek Fair-Value Freeze
Excerpt: Several proponents of fair value have criticized the committee for not endorsing fair value and allowing for a mixed-attribute model. “We think the discussions [in the final report] will slow down the process in moving toward fair value,” said Glenn Doggett, a policy analyst at CFA Institute. Other associations contacted by Financial Week declined to comment until the final report is published.

28 July 2008
Canoe.ca
True Stories to Guide Your Career in the Right Direction
Excerpt: Carl graduated from university with a finance degree. He loved finances and particularly wanted to work directly with the stock market. However, he was offered a position with a company that instead sold products to the people who worked on the market. He was also committed to getting his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and this role had less stress than a direct market one, so he decided to take it.

25 July 2008
Financial Standard
CFA Decorates Ambachtsheer
Excerpt: The CFA Institute awarded Keith Ambachtsheer the James R. Vertin Award for his continued work in pension research.

24 July 2008
Money Management Letter
Rotman Center Director Gets CFA Institute Award
Excerpt: The CFA Institute awarded Keith Ambachtsheer the James R. Vertin Award for producing research considered notable for its relevance and value to the investment community. Ambachtsheer is the director of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

24 July 2008
Daily News & Analysis
B-School Students Add CFA Edge to Their CVs
Excerpt: Amid pressing project deadlines and a continuous flow of assignments, Amit Sharma somehow manages to squeeze out a couple of hours daily. He's been doing this for the last three months. But it's not work-life balance or hobbies that are occupying these couple of hours. He's actually preparing for his chartered financial analyst (CFA) exams, Level I.

24 July 2008
Asian Tribune
CFA Competition 2008
Excerpt: To achieve this purpose for the second consecutive year Chartered Financial Analysts, Sri Lanka Chapter, a part of the global CFA body, is organizing the Financial Analysts Competition 2008 from July to September 2008 and selected students from the academic institutions are participating in the competition. Teams of five students per university/academic institute are chosen.

23 July 2008
Hexun (China)
CFA Institute Centre Launches ESG Manual
Excerpt: The CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity, the global policy authority on professional and performance standards, financial reporting, and capital markets, today launched Environmental, Social, and Governance Factors at Listed Companies: A Manual for Investors to assist investors in understanding how a company deals with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.

23 July 2008
Pensions & Investments Online
CFA Institute Honors Ambachtsheer
Excerpt: Keith P. Ambachtsheer received the CFA Institute’s James R. Vertin Award, recognizing individuals for their research of “relevance and enduring value to investment professionals,” according to a statement by the institute.

23 July 2008
MetroValley Newspaper Group
Whether to Invest in Precious Metals Depends on Your Profile
Excerpt: More recently, investment experts have come to view precious metals as a good way to diversify a portfolio and a recent study from the CFA Institute, a global association of investment professionals, supports that claim. The study examined the long-term investment benefits of a "significant exposure to precious metals" in U.S. equity portfolios and found that "precious metals serve as an effective hedge against the typical decline in equities that occurs during an increasing interest rate environment."

23 July 2008
Advisor.ca
Keith Ambachtsheer Wins CFA Award
Excerpt: The CFA Institute announced Wednesday that Keith Ambachtsheer is this year's recipient of the prestigious James R. Vertin Award. The prize recognizes people who have developed a body of research related to investment professionals. Ambachtsheer, who is a director of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, was given the award on Tuesday night in Chicago.

23 July 2008
Investment Executive
Canadian Pension Scholar Receives Award from CFA Institute
Excerpt: [Keith] Ambachtsheer, who is director of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, has been a key figure in the global pension arena for more than 30 years. The award was presented to him last night at the 50th Financial Analysts Seminar, a CFA Institute conference hosted by the CFA Society of Chicago.

23 July 2008
Khaleej Times
SECP Launches Analyst Certification Programme
Excerpt: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) announced the launch of Analyst Certification Programme in collaboration with the CFA Institute and CFA Pakistan. The announcement was made at a joint press conference by SECP, CFA Institute, and CFA Pakistan.

22 July 2008
Advisor.ca
Sell-Side Analysts More Accurate than Buy-Side: Study
Excerpt: The resulting study, which is published in the latest issue of the CFA Institute's Financial Analysts Journal, found that between 1997 and 2004, sell-side analysts who tend to work for large brokerage firms put out much more accurate forecasts than the closely guarded reports of buy-side firms.

21 July 2008
Accounting Today
FASB, IASB Present Docs on Framework
Excerpt: [Jeffrey] Johnson said that the two boards approved the proposal unanimously, though Tony Cope, a former member of both boards and now on the corporate disclosure policy council of the CFA Institute Centre, said that within the nuances of the documents are some subtle tugs toward the American and European ways of doing business.

21 July 2008
Accounting Today
EU Banks Soften Opposition on Fair Value
Excerpt: “I think that the debate has moved on. The banks are finally accepting the IASB’s position for dealing with structured products, such as [collateralized debt obligations],” said Charles Cronin of the CFA Institute. “Now [banking] has gone forward to looking for greater guidance on what the model should be for valuations where there is no observable market. “

21 July 2008
Pensions & Investments Daily
Manager Survey: Don’t Order GIPS Verification
Excerpt:  The GIPS executive committee November 8 rejected requiring verification of money managers’ compliance by an independent firm. Instead, it adopted a proposal to require that the GIPS compliance statement include an explicit disclosure of whether or not the firm has been verified.

19 July 2008
Harbour City Star
There Are Pros and Cons to Investing in Metals
Excerpt: More recently, investment experts have come to view precious metals as a good way to diversify a portfolio and a recent study from the CFA Institute, a global association of investment professionals, supports that claim. The study examined the long-term investment benefits of a “significant exposure to precious metals” in U.S. equity portfolios and found that “precious metals serve as an effective hedge against the typical decline in equities that occurs during an increasing interest rate environment.”

18 July 2008
Global Pensions Weekly
US Plan to Curtain Rating Agencies
Excerpt: James C. Allen, director, Capital Markets Policy Group, CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity, said the CFA Institute had previously called on credit rating agencies to refrain from rating new structured products until there was sufficient statistical data to defend the ratings, and the bill’s proposals took that position a step further by engaging the SEC in determining what should and shouldn’t be rated.

17 July 2008
The National Business Review (New Zealand)
Calling OPEC’s Bluff
Excerpt: Other results of the poll indicated that CFA Institute members, investment professionals whose motto is "ethics, tenacity, rigor, and analytics," were not happy with other aspects surrounding CRAs.

17 July 2008
International Fund Investment
CFA Institute Launches Ethical Code of Conduct for Pension Funds
Excerpt: The CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity has launched a code of conduct aimed at the members of a pension fund’s governing body, to help such individuals manage their ethical responsibilities. Funding pension schemes and securing the financial future of pension participants and beneficiaries is a growing global challenge as longevity and ageing populations become critical issues in many countries.

16 July 2008
Topnews.in (India)
Poll Focuses on Credit Agencies Swayed by Client Pressure
Excerpt: "A different rating scale is an essential aid to trustees and fiduciaries, to help them evaluate and quantify the amount of exposure they desire," James Allen, director of the CFA Institute's capital markets policy group, said in the newspaper's report.

16 July 2008
MonstersandCritics.com
Poll Focuses on Credit Agencies Swayed by Client Pressure
Excerpt: "We were very surprised by the results of our member poll," The Business Times quoted managing director Kurt Schacht as saying, noting that 211 of the respondents said "they have indeed witnessed a credit-rating agency change their rating in response to external pressure."

16 July 2008
IR Magazine
Investors Seek More Fair Value Accounting
Excerpt: Some argue that fair value accounting is adding to instability at financial institutions, but the message from CFA Institute, which represents 90,000 members of the global investment community, is that investors view fair value as the best way to get out of the current mess.

16 July 2008
FT Alphaville
So, Sell the Buy and Buy the Sell
Excerpt: Here’s something a bit counter-intuitive: sell-side analysts tend to be more accurate and less optimistic than their counterparts on the buy side according to a trio of Harvard Business School academics published in the July/August edition of the CFA Institute Financial Analysts Journal.

16 July 2008
PIonline.com
Buy Side Sunnier But Less Accurate, CFA Says
Excerpt: Buy-side analysts make rosier − and less accurate − forecasts than their sell-side counterparts, according to an article in the CFA Institute Financial Analysts Journal.

16 July 2008
Business Times Singapore
Poll Reveals Fault with Rating Firms
Excerpt: Kurt Schacht, managing director of the CFA Institute Centre, said: "We were very surprised by the results of our member poll. Two hundred and eleven of the 1,956 respondents said they have indeed witnessed a credit rating agency change their rating in response to external pressure."

15 July 2008
IndiaPost.com
Ways to Downsize During Retirement
Excerpt: Despite the general savings that come along with downsizing a home, many people are still reluctant to do it. "Most retirees have an emotional attachment to their house and most want space for their kids to visit," says Stephen Horan, a Chartered Financial Analyst and head of private wealth and investor education at the CFA Institute in Charlottesville, Va. "But if you can downsize and free up capital to reinvest into your retirement portfolio, that can be a very sensible thing to do.”

14 July 2008
Total Securitization
One Year Ago in Total Securitization
Excerpt: The Securities and Exchange Commission has since issued proposals aimed at restoring the agencies’ credibility and boosting investor confidence. A recent CFA Institute survey, however, suggests that such proposals fall short.

14 July 2008
Investment Executive
Putting the Boots to Number Crunching
Excerpt: The chartered financial analyst (CFA) designation, issued by the CFA Institute, based in Charlottesville, Va., is one of the financial service industry’s most revered designations.

14 July 2008
American Banker
Washington People
Excerpt: "Someone remarked yesterday in looking at this panel makeup that this would be a pep rally for fair-value accounting," said Kurt Schacht, a managing director at the CFA Institute. "We would probably be guilty of being one of the biggest cheerleaders out there."

14 July 2008
Barron’s
The Numbers Speak for Themselves
Excerpt: The link between valuation and default risk has clobbered quants who favor value factors. In the second half of last year, growth stocks did paradoxically well even though the overall market declined. This year, momentum stocks, with uptrending prices, have been the leaders. At the Nomura meeting, and in a timely new survey sponsored by the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute, the U.S. market's style rotation from value to momentum got much of the blame for quants' mediocre performance of late.

12 July 2008
South China Morning Post
Gearing Up for Volatile Times
Excerpt: One of the more popular designations is the Chartered Financial Analyst. The United States-based CFA Institute, which awards the designation, started administering the examinations in Hong Kong in the early 1980s. The number of CFA charter holders in Hong Kong has grown to 3,977 this year, from 660 nine years ago.

12 July 2008
The News (Pakistan)
SECP Defends Market-Cooling Measures
Excerpt: ACP will be a two-component programme. [The] first component is Level-I of [the] CFA examination, which is being administered globally twice a year by CFA Institute, USA, in many countries including Pakistan. In this level, the SECP would offer 50 scholarships out of total 150. [The] remaining 100 would be offered in the second component comprising a local module, which has been developed by CFA Pakistan.

12 July 2008
Daily Times (Pakistan)
SECP to launch Analyst Certification Programme
Excerpt: Speaking on the occasion, Dr. [Ashvin] Vibhakar, mentioned that CFA Institute and CFA Pakistan are pleased to collaborate with SECP and help improve the professional excellence of investment professionals in Pakistan.

12 July 2008
The Post
SECP Launches Analyst Certification Programme
Excerpt: The programme has been launched in collaboration with the CFA Institute and CFA Pakistan, said SECP Chairman Razi-ur-Rehman Khan while addressing a press conference along with deputy head of Asia Pacific Operations for CFA Institute Dr. Ashvin Vibhakar here Friday. He said the present environment in Pakistani stock market does not provide or mandate minimum level of required knowledge for capital market participation or intermediation.

11 July 2008
Financial Director.co.uk
Fair Value Cannot Be Blamed
Excerpt: The CFA Institute’s Kurt Schacht, CFA, said that fair value “is the most valuable information, particularly in tough markets, because it tells investors what is under stress. Where fair value has not lived up to its full potential is in the level and quality of accompanying disclosures,” he said.

10 July 2008
TheDeal.com
Cox: Improve Fair Value Guidance
Excerpt: Kurt Schacht, who represents investment professionals, said investors want more fair value not less. According to a survey of CFA Institute members worldwide (2,006 responses), 79% of respondents believe that fair value requirements improve transparency and contribute to investor understanding of financial institutions' risk, and 74% think fair value requirements will improve market integrity.

9 July 2008
CFO.com
A Little Fair Value Never Killed Anyone
Excerpt: Fair value "is the most valuable information, particularly in tough markets, because it tells investors what is under stress," said Kurt Schacht of the CFA Institute in his opening remarks. "Where fair value has not lived up to its full potential is in the level and quality of accompanying disclosures."

9 July 2008
Reuters
Wall Street Happens to Like Fair Value Accounting
Excerpt: "It provides the most complete information, the most reliable and says a lot about the firm's risk management," Kurt Schacht, managing director with the CFA Institute, said on Wednesday at a Securities and Exchange Commission meeting to examine fair value accounting.

9 July 2008
Canada.com
Don’t Believe Everything You Hear from Financial Analysts
Excerpt: Not all triple-A securities are created equal, the CFA Institute says. "As demonstrated in the current credit crisis, structured products typically perform very differently from traditional corporate bonds."

9 July 2008
FT Alphaville
Will a New Rating System Help Us Understand Risk Any Better?
Excerpt: The WSJ is reporting on a survey of 96,000 investors, brokers, and analysts conducted by the CFA Institute. The survey found that many of its members want a new regulatory body to oversee rating firms, along with a different set of ratings for structured products, such as for mortgage-backed securities and CDOs. Amazingly, the CFA survey found that 11% of the 1,940 respondents globally said they had seen a ratings firm change a rating as a result of pressure or influence from an outside party, such as a bond underwriter.

9 July 2008
Financial Standard
Investors Influence Credit Ratings
Excerpt: Kurt Schacht, managing director of the CFA Institute Centre, said CRAs were concerned about the hype and insinuation that rating houses easily inflate their ratings in response to pressure from these different sources. Nevertheless the results speak clearly for themselves.

8 July 2008
Nikkan Kogyo Shimbum (Japan)
Waseda University Nurtures Investment Professionals
Excerpt: Waseda Graduate School of Finance, Accounting and Law has just moved into a CFA Program Partnership with CFA Institute (Virginia, US), to develop further opportunities for their graduates to pursue the CFA charter as they enter the finance and investment fields.

8 July 2008
Financial Post
CFA Highlights Credit Rating Conflict
Excerpt: The CFA Institute says more than 10% of investment professionals who responded to a recent poll said they have witnessed a credit-rating agency change a rating in response to pressure from an investor, issuer or underwriter.

8 July 2008
Lanka Business Online
Sri Lanka Students to Pit Their Wits in CFA Analyst Challenge
Excerpt: The Financial Analysts Competition 2008, which is endorsed by Sri Lanka's Securities and Exchange Commission, will be held from July to September, for the second year running, the CFA Sri Lanka chapter said.

8 July 2008
Financial Week
Investors Cite Rating Agencies’ Conflicts of Interest
Excerpt: The CFA survey went further to reveal that many respondents felt the most harmful conflict of interest results from the payment structure under which rating agencies such as Moody’s Investors Service and Standard and Poor’s are paid by the same issuers whose securities they grade.

8 July 2008
Advisor.ca
CFA Institute Launches ESG Manual
Excerpt: Kurt Schacht, CFA, managing director of the CFA Institute Centre, expanded by saying that "these topics are now part and parcel of the metrics used by investment professionals to analyze and value the public companies they invest in. [This] ESG manual will help clarify and decipher the sparse and inconsistent ESG information provided in the current financial reports coming from companies."

8 July 2008
Bond Buyer
Poll Finds Dim View of Rating Agencies
Excerpt: "At the very least these results suggest that the [credit rating agencies] have more than just a perception problem about their processes and integrity, which much be addressed," James Allen, director of CFA Institute Centre's capital markets policy group, said in a statement.

8 July 2008
Reuters
EU Ministers Seek Tougher Rating Agency Oversight
Excerpt: They have also been criticized by some for a perceived lack of independence. A survey of investment professionals published on Monday by the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute said 211 of 1,956 respondents had witnessed a rating agency change its rating in response to pressure from an investor, issuer or underwriter.

8 July 2008
Business Week
Investing Lessons from John Templeton
Excerpt: “It’s fair to say that the evolution of the mutual fund has completely changed the investing landscape,” said Stephen Horan, head of private wealth at the CFA Institute, when I asked him about Templeton’s legacy. Mutual funds now feel like an obvious and indispensable part of the investing landscape. But before the 1950s, the vast majority of stocks were held directly by individuals, most quite wealthy. Templeton “helped popularize [mutual funds] and put [stocks] in the hands of the individual investors,” Horan said.

8 July 2008
Bloomberg
SEC Probe of Raters Reveals Conflicts in Grading Debt
Excerpt: A CFA Institute poll of almost 2,000 chartered financial analysts released yesterday found that 11 percent said they saw a credit-rating company change its rating in response to pressure from an investor, issuer or underwriter.

8 July 2008
RTTNews
S&P’s Sharma Stresses Need to Develop Additional Analysis of Credit Ratings
Excerpt: Recently, financial investment groups such as the CFA Institute have expressed concerns about ratings being swayed by bond issuers paying for the ratings.

8 July 2008
Reuters
EU Ministers Seek Tougher Rating Agency Oversight
Excerpt: They have also been criticized by some for a perceived lack of independence. A survey of investment professionals published on Monday by the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute said 211 of 1,956 respondents had witnessed a rating agency change its rating in response to pressure from an investor, issuer or underwriter.

8 July 2008
efinancialnews
Global Working Groups to Focus on Securitization Reform
Excerpt: The CFA Institute, which represents 96,000 investors, brokers, and analysts has called for a new set of ratings to be introduced for structured products.

8 July 2008
IPE.com
Investors Back Reform of ‘Disturbing’ CRA Conduct
Excerpt: The results of the CFA Institute member opinion poll found 211 (11%) of the 1,956 respondents had witnessed a credit rating agency (CRA) change its rating in response to pressure from an investor, issuer, or underwriter.

8 July 2008
Global Pensions
Investors Call for Credit Rating Reform
Excerpt: Investors have backed calls for the reform of credit rating agencies (CRAs), a survey by the CFA Institute has found. The survey showed many investors felt uneasy about the perceived conflicts of interest between issuers of structured products and CRAs.

7 July 2008
Pensions & Investments
Pequot CIO: Executive Compensation to Drop
Excerpt: “I'm ready for it,” said Byron R. Wien, chief investment officer at Pequot Capital Management Inc., Westport, Conn., during a conference sponsored by the CFA Institute in Washington, predicting that executive compensation will go down to “more reasonable levels.”

7 July 2008
Advisor.ca
Raters Need Independence, CFAs Say
Excerpt: "In the wake of the subprime crisis, we have met with several representatives from ratings firms," said Kurt Schacht, CFA and managing director of the CFA Institute Centre. "They were concerned about the hype and insinuation that CRAs easily inflate their ratings in response to pressure from issuers and underwriters, implicating the integrity of their process and ratings. In exploring that topic, we were very surprised by the results of our member poll, where some 211 of the 1,956 respondents said they have indeed witnessed a CRA change ratings in response to external pressures."

7 July 2008
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Expert Cites 11 Common Mistakes of Investors
Excerpt: “Creating a program to confidently boost investment success is not easy,” said Mark Yu, president of CFA Philippines, the local affiliate of CFA Institute, which administers the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Program worldwide. “Investors are sometimes their own worst enemy by making common mistakes.”

7 July 2008
Market News International
CFA Poll: Credit Agencies Should Submit to Self Regulation
Excerpt: The CFA survey respondents massively criticized the conflicts of interests caused by the compensation structure used by credit agencies, with several CFA members calling for a model where the investor or the user of the rating would have to pay rather than the issuer.

7 July 2008
Financial Times
Everything You Ever Needed to Know About Benchmarks
Excerpt: (Written by Stephen Horan)
Q: Why are performance benchmarks important?
A: Knowing you had a 5 percent return tells you little in the absence of other reference values. An appropriate benchmark allows one to provide a meaningful comparison of portfolio performance.

7 July 2008
InvestmentNews
CFA Institute Poll Calls for Rating Reform
Excerpt: Investors, brokers and analysts believe the current system of rating bonds should be reformed, according to a CFA Institute Centre member poll released today.

7 July 2008
Bloomberg
SEC Probe of Raters Uncovers ‘Significant Problems’
Excerpt: A CFA Institute poll of almost 2,000 chartered financial analysts released today found that 11 percent said they saw a credit-rating company change its rating in response to pressure from an investor, issuer or underwriter. Fifty-five percent of respondents said credit-rating companies should be overseen by an independent regulator with enforcement.

7 July 2008
Reuters
Rating Agencies Submit to Pressure − CFA Poll
Excerpt: "These results are disturbing, they point to serious deficiencies in professional conduct at credit rating agencies," said Charles Cronin, head of the CFA Institute Centre EMEA.

7 July 2008
CFO.com
Critics Are Conspicuously Absent From This Week’s SEC Roundtable on Fair Value Accounting. So What Is It That Its Participants Hope to Accomplish?
Excerpt: The second panel, focusing on the perspective of "all public companies," seems equally weighted toward a pro-fair value stance. For example, panelists Harold Schroeder of Carlson Capital appeared at a CFA Institute panel discussion on fair value this spring and took the sanguine view that the credit crunch would ease on its own.

7 July 2008
Global Pensions
Investors Call for Credit Rating Reform
Excerpt: Charles Cronin, head of CFA Institute Centre EMEA, said: “These results are disturbing, they point to serious deficiencies in professional conduct at CRAs.”

7 July 2008
efinancialnews.com
CFAs Press for Rating Industry Overhaul
Excerpt: In the latest call for reform within the rating industry in the wake of the turmoil, some 47% of members polled by the CFA Institute, the powerful industry trade body, said structured finance products should have different ranking to other debt securities, with 55% in favour of agencies forming a self-regulatory body.

7 July 2008
FT Alphaville
Public Opinion: Rating Agencies
Excerpt: The CFA Institute has conducted an opinion poll on credit rating agencies. With 1,956 respondents − all, being members, qualified financial analysts − it makes for a fairly authoritative snapshot.

7 July 2008
Wall Street Journal
Finance Group Questions Bond-Rating Proposals
Excerpt: The CFA Institute, which represents 96,000 investors, brokers, analysts and others in finance-related professions, said in a poll to be released this week that many of its members want a new regulatory organization to police rating firms and a different set of rating symbols for structured products such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. Read the full article

3 July 2008
Professional Pensions
CFA Institute Sets out Code on Ethical Responsibilities
Excerpt: The CFA Institute said trustees needed transparent guidance to cope with growing complexities such as ageing populations, mortality assumptions, volatile markets and ever changing legislation.

2 July 2008
Accounting and Business
Ready for Your Quarterly Snapshot?
Excerpt: The CFA and HKSFA believe the quality of investment decisions can be no better than the quality of financial reporting, and a major factor in the quality of this information is its timeliness. The consequence of less-frequent reporting would be increased volatility of share prices, particularly prior to and immediately following the release of annual or semi-annual financial reports.

1 July 2008
Investor Services Journal (UK)
New Scapegoat
Excerpt: A survey by the CFA Institute has found that 11 percent of respondents had seen a rating agency change following pressure from an investor, issuer or underwriter.

1 July 2008
efinancialcareers.com
Is a CFA Really Worth the Hassle?
Excerpt: For new entrants fretting about attaining CFA status, Philip Darling, partner at Korn/Ferry International, says most fund managers will put graduates through the programme, particularly if the parent company is American.

1 July 2008
Worth
Seeking a Clear View
Excerpt: “This report is about calling for better disclosure,” says Jim Allen, director of the CFA Institute’s Capital Markets Policy Group. “You are better able to make a decision about whether you should buy a company’s shares or sell a company’s shares, or how you might vote your proxy.”

1 July 2008
Wealth Manager
Is It Also Smart as a Strategic Portfolio Holding?
Excerpt: The academic argument for always holding some foreign currency risk in investment portfolios dates to at least 1989 and Fischer Black’s “Universal Hedging: Optimizing Currency Risk and Reward in International Equity Portfolios” in the Financial Analysts Journal. Black offers a simple formula for estimating how much to hedge foreign currency exposure. The formula has three inputs, each calculated from the average across individual countries for the attached formulas

1 July 2008
IR Magazine
Rise in Guidance Provision Reverses Trend
Excerpt: NIRI’s survey, conducted in partnership with CFA Institute, went to over 3,000 NIRI corporate members, and had a 12 percent response rate.

1 July 2008
PEI Manager
Marketing to Myth
Excerpt: Defenders point to the recent survey conducted by the CFA Institute which concluded that the majority of professional investors believe that fair value requirements improve transparency and market integrity.

1 July 2008
China Economic Review
Testing: One, Two, Three
Excerpt: “They become part of a global network of like-minded investment professionals, with all of the advantages that such a network can convey,” [Henry] Chua said. “The body of knowledge mastered by CFA charterholders is seen to be as applicable and valuable in China as it has been around the world.”

1 July 2008
Traders
Soft Dollar Disclosure on the Table
Excerpt: Backing the CII is the CFA Institute, which believes the SEC proposal doesn't go far enough. "We strongly support the proposed disclosure relating to soft dollar arrangements," wrote Kurt Schacht, executive director for the CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity, and Linda Rittenhouse, senior policy analyst there. They urged the SEC to further require investment advisers to provide a breakdown of spending on research and execution.

1 July 2008
Banker Middle East
CRAs Heal Thyself
Excerpt: (Written by Charles Cronin, CFA) The unraveling of the structured finance markets over the past year has exposed the failings of the world’s leading credit rating agencies (CRAs) and embroiled the world of investment and finance in a battle over credibility and regulatory concern.

1 July 2008
The Accountant
Monitoring Group a Step Closer as Stakeholders Call for Balance
Excerpt: Ray DeAngelo, the managing director for the member and society division of the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, a global body, said a notable omission from the monitoring group was any direct representative of investors in capital markets.

1 July 2008
European Pensions
Guidelines to Drive Higher Standards
Excerpt: The Code of Conduct for Members of a Pension Scheme Governing Body, launched by the CFA Institute, sets out ten fundamental ethical responsibilities for individuals who sit on the governing bodies of pension funds worldwide, which collectively promote the ideas of integrity, fairness, competence, and transparency.

1 July 2008
Investment & Pensions Europe
End of the Line for Quants?
Excerpt: So what lessons have quants learned? More important, will quants regain the trust they lost last summer? Some of the answers to these questions are provided by the new Fabozzi-Intertek study commissioned by the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute.

1 July 2008
Investment & Pensions Europe
Putting Ethics at the Heart of the Asset Management Industry
Excerpt: (Written by Nitin Mehta) An indicator of this new source of future talent is the rate of growth in candidates enrolling for the CFA Program, leading to the Chartered Financial Analyst designation: in the past year, 36 percent more candidates started their professional studies compared to the previous year.

1 July 2008
Financial Times
Financial Times Mandate: Analysis: Pension Schemes Seek Standards
Excerpt: However, the KPMG survey also reveals that investors currently rate the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) and the sound practices guide published by the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) as more important than the HFSB standards.

July 2008
richard-wilson.blogspot.com
CFA or CAIA − What Is the Difference?
Excerpt: The CFA and CAIA designations have some similarities − they’re both for finance professionals and are earned through an exam series, but when you look at the curricula and the intention of each, the distinctions are pretty clear. The CFA Institute offers a comprehensive, in-depth educational program on traditional investments; the CAIA Association offers a comprehensive, in-depth educational program on alternative vehicles. The CAIA program is more dynamic, which is in line with the AI industry’s rapid development, whereas the CFA program is much more static, which is in line with their emphasis on the traditional fundamentals that have stayed fairly constant over time.

July 2008
Enterprise Magazine (Philippines)
Brain Gain: Luring Back Lost Talents
Excerpt: According to Mark Yu [president of CFA Society of the Philippines], the CFA designation is known as the definitive standard for measuring competence and integrity in the fields of portfolio management and investment analysis. Becoming a CFA charterholder can definitely better the situation of Filipinos enabling them to be able to find better jobs in the country, instead of having to move out.