By: CFA Institute Contributor

These are articles written by professionals for investment professionals. They are contributions from external subject matter experts who do not work for CFA Institute, but may be a CFA charterholder as well as a member of a CFA Society. All are experts in their field and strive to deliver useful insights that help investment professionals make better decisions.

All 123 Articles

Rising Risk (Part I): Accounting shenanigans and alternative investments

October 2, 2019

In this first instalment of a two-part piece, Sebastien Canderle says PE fund managers are getting creative with their accounting – and EBITDA seems particularly malleable. Seasoned auditors know that the risk of fraud increases when a client experiences brisk organic growth or M&A activity. During the 1990s, the most spirited dealmakers included telecoms operators [...]
Technology fuels increasingly mobile future for investment professionals

June 18, 2019

CFA Institute report finds that nearly half of investment professionals expect their roles to substantially change within the next decade.
Top ten considerations for investors surrounding new leasing standard

April 15, 2019

At long last, a company’s lease obligations – formerly buried in the back of the footnotes of the financial statements – are moving front and centre onto the balance sheet, as a new leasing standard goes into effect for both US GAAP and IFRS companies effective 1 January 2019. That’s just around the corner as [...]
How would you like to pay for that, madam?

October 17, 2018

The global payments industry is dramatically improving due to technology. Mobile has changed everything. Payments are getting faster and smarter. Competition is intense. And payments are revolutionsing markets in the developing world even faster than in the developed world. In just the next seven years, the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that widespread adoption and use [...]
Should financial professionals learn data science?

October 4, 2018

When many financial professionals are asked about the importance of learning programming languages, they usually respond with answers that imply such tools are only beneficial for IT or Development teams. They believe that learning such languages will provide little to no benefits to them because, after all, they have teams who can do that for [...]
The power of appreciation

September 6, 2018

Appreciation is a greatly under-utilised tool in the leader’s toolkit. The simple act of appreciating your staff will pay huge dividends. Appreciation can simply be the act of paying close attention to someone. Appreciation means the full awareness or understanding of something. So, you could practice appreciation by simply asking a staff member how their [...]
Empathetic listening: A six-step guide

August 24, 2018

Empathetic listening means paying attention in a caring manner. It encompasses compassion, feeling, insight, and emotional identification and helps us understand where the other person is coming from before we react. Emotional connection shows someone we grasp how they feel. And it is critical to financial advice today. As human financial advisers compete with passively [...]
Investing in Nigeria: Is now the time?

August 13, 2018

Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and the 24th largest in the world: The country is buzzing with creative energy but continues to wrestle with infrastructure and security challenges. What does this all mean for investors? In this episode, recorded live at the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference in Hong Kong, Oscar N. [...]
USA: Two economies, one nation

March 15, 2018

As economists and investors, we treat the United States as one country and one economy and the eurozone as a conglomerate of many countries with a common currency. There are good reasons for this: The United States is not just a currency union and a single market but also a fiscal union with a uniform [...]
Big fish: The seven largest types of institutional investors

March 7, 2018

Say whatever you want about the world, but there’s never been a better time to be an end investor. Many things investment professionals fear — fee compression, automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain — benefit clients through higher account balances and lower fees. Asset owners are the largest of those clients. Though they are frequently [...]

FTSE 100 Live: Stocks set for cautious gains as investors weigh up US-Iran deal

2026 World Cup: How England went from misery to magnet for blue chip brands

Old Pulteney releases 50-year-old whisky for 200th anniversary

By: CFA Institute Contributor

All 123 Articles