CFA or ACCA for Practical Accounting Knowledge

[theasiareport]

There are a lot of professional qualifications around...

 

But if the goal was to gain some training on accounting to aid the general investor in getting a formal education on accounting and financial statement analysis (as opposed to getting it for a career), which qualification do forum members think or have experience in that they think will be more useful to what we as value investors normally do?

 

Cheers,

 

[Palantir]

CFA Level 1 will give you a good background. Don't have to take it, just get used books etc.

[jay21]

There are a lot of professional qualifications around...

 

But if the goal was to gain some training on accounting to aid the general investor in getting a formal education on accounting and financial statement analysis (as opposed to getting it for a career), which qualification do forum members think or have experience in that they think will be more useful to what we as value investors normally do?

 

Cheers,

 

You should choose based on your career not for general knowledge. Get an intermediate accting book if you want to learn accting. Also read financials statements as they usually explain their method of accting for certain relevant transactions.

[Hielko]

There are a lot of professional qualifications around...

 

But if the goal was to gain some training on accounting to aid the general investor in getting a formal education on accounting and financial statement analysis (as opposed to getting it for a career), which qualification do forum members think or have experience in that they think will be more useful to what we as value investors normally do?

 

Cheers,

 

You should choose based on your career not for general knowledge. Get an intermediate accting book if you want to learn accting. Also read financials statements as they usually explain their method of accting for certain relevant transactions.

What if your career is full time private investor? Fwiw I'm a full time investor and got cfa lvl 1 and 2 (and hopefully 3) and thought that the first two level were pretty decent for someone without any relevant previous education in finance. Lvl 1 is very broad and general while lvl 2 has a lot of accounting, corporate finance and equity valuation. Lvl 3 is totally useless

[jay21]

There are a lot of professional qualifications around...

 

But if the goal was to gain some training on accounting to aid the general investor in getting a formal education on accounting and financial statement analysis (as opposed to getting it for a career), which qualification do forum members think or have experience in that they think will be more useful to what we as value investors normally do?

 

Cheers,

 

You should choose based on your career not for general knowledge. Get an intermediate accting book if you want to learn accting. Also read financials statements as they usually explain their method of accting for certain relevant transactions.

What if your career is full time private investor? Fwiw I'm a full time investor and got cfa lvl 1 and 2 (and hopefully 3) and thought that the first two level were pretty decent for someone without any relevant previous education in finance. Lvl 1 is very broad and general while lvl 2 has a lot of accounting, corporate finance and equity valuation. Lvl 3 is totally useless

 

I would think there are better uses of your time (but obviously do what you want). Pick one of the topics you are most interested in and start reading the most recommended books and/or textbooks for that field. You can also probably use some online resources (Kahn academy and YouTube?) if you just want to pick up a few valuation tools like gordon growth or statistics.

 

I am actually one of the people who thinks a good chunk of the CFA curriculum is relevant to finance. I see a lot of value investors talk it down but it does give a good overview of finance. If I was a private investor or not in finance, I would not attempt it.