Sorry didn't see this, did my level 1 last June, Level 2 this June, its so fucking boring doing the accounting parts!
Mmmmmm Bubble Bubble Rise then trouble! Either a bubble will build, or people will switch back to developed amrkets so the gains won't be as large over the next couple of years.
I'll have Level 2 in June hopefully. The content was interesting, but I hated doing it as we had to cover it in 2 months as well as work during the day (2 hours a day plus weekends).
As for EM- definitely not a bubble. There's no leverage, investors are generally still under-allocated (I think pension funds have nothing in EM Debt for example) and fundamentally, EM countries are much better than the developed world these days. They have structural surpluses, low debt/gdp, some of the biggest companies in the world, all the resources pretty much (land, labour, minerals, oil etc), the demand, the supply....
I'm in Emerging Market Debt, and the big problems I see with it in the next year are on the fixed income side rather than EM (EM equities will do well).
Gains won't be as large on the fixed income side (but then it was generating 15-20% recently, depending on which EM exposure you had; you won't get that again of course)but I don't think that'll be the case with the equities.
Of course there are potential problems, but it's a great place to be at the moment.
Meant I worked in a variety of emerging market economies during the late 80's/early 90's.
If you're working in the investment/analyst field (can't remember where you ended up BazC), the first, second, third and most critical activity is understanding the financials of whomever you're looking at, especially how they do their accounting, the accuracy of same, and still understand that they may have "multiple" sets of books.
It's all about risk, country/political/enterprise. If you're looking at making a significant investment, understand what can go wrong, the sources of risk at the enterprise level are multitudinal.
I ended up in the investment management side in the end- been there since the end of June.
Fundamentals is definitely the most important thing, I agree- I think I'm a while away from making my own investment decisions but am looking forward to the education and experience in the coming months.
The CFA will help build the tool set to use with respect to fundamental analysis, but I'm looking forward to reading books about investing philosophies and strategies as well.
