CFA and fund performance

sn8eye

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Is there any research that shows that funds or portfolios managed by CFA charterholders outperfom the market and therefore provide better returns to investors?

I ask this because many star fund managers (warren buffett, george soros, steven cohen, de Shaw, etc ) are not CFA charterholders.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Friday, September 29, 2006 at 06:07PM by sn8eye.
 
one of the ethics rules is that CFA charterholders are no allowed to claim that the charter enables them to perform better
 
Bill Miller and Bill Gross are both charterholders. But given the number of charterholders out there, you can be pretty sure that such a study would indicate having the charter does not add value from a performance point of view.
 
No, but neither does having an M.D. after your name signify that you are a superior doctor or even a descent one at that.
 
Not the greatest analogy in the world. There are plenty of fund managers that aren't charterholders, but I'm not sure how many surgeons there are in the US without an MD.
 
Danny Boy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not the greatest analogy in the world. There are
> plenty of fund managers that aren't
> charterholders, but I'm not sure how many surgeons
> there are in the US without an MD.


indeed, is not practicing medicine without a licence a crime?
 
The academic literature on this subject reveals that holding the CFA charter is "unrelated to mutual fund performance". There are other educational variables that are related though.

Manager Education and Mutual Fund Performance
ARON A. GOTTESMAN
MATTHEW R. MOREY



Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between manager education and mutual fund performance, following Chevalier and Ellison (1999a). We refine their analysis by investigating if the quality of the MBA program, as measured by the mean GMAT score and Business Week ranking, has any effect on performance. We find that the mean GMAT score of the MBA program is positively and significantly related to fund performance. Managers who hold MBAs from schools ranked in the top 30 of the Business Week rankings of MBA programs exhibit performance superior to the performance of both managers without MBA degrees and managers holding MBAs from unranked programs. We also find that other education variables, such as whether the manager attained a CFA designation or holds either a non-MBA masters-level graduate degree or Ph.D., are generally unrelated to mutual fund performance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Wednesday, October 4, 2006 at 10:00AM by equity_analyst.
 
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