CFA Course Material

I’ve came to a conclusion that a strong entrepreneurial passion and experience I have and the business tradition from the family would not be enough for handling one of our newest unit in Jakarta. At the very first glance, this course materials might help:

Financial Statement Analysis and Corporate Finance (16 sessions)
Ethics and Basic Investment Tools (Quantitative Analysis and Economics) (18 sessions)
Asset Valuation and Portfolio Management (20 sessions)
Review Class + Mock Up Exam & Explanatory (10 sessions)
Total     64 sessions

Ethical and Professional Standard
Economics*
Quantitative Analysis
Financial Statement Analysis**
Asset Valuation***
Portfolio Management

* For level 3, Economics include in Portfolio Management
** For Level 1 and 2, Corporate Finance include in Financial Statement Analysis
*** Include Market & Instruments, Equity, Debt, Derivative and Alternative  Investments.
For level 3, Derivative include in Portfolio Management

But then I’ve also found information in a discussion board in CFA Indonesia Study Group, that the things can be learned by only buying the book set from the CFA Institute and some other useful books. Therefore, attending a course isn’t needed. And it was even said that buying the book and set materials from the CFA institute is a prerequisite for doing the internationally standardized assessment test.
Well, I’m not more into doing the test, but just need to get a good grip on the subjects.

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Perspective of the Investment Industry towards FX-based Investment Products

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I have just read R’s blog entry with a link to a paper about alternative investment and I’ve scan-read the paper. In exhibit #1, it was mapped, the universe of traditional and alternative investment asset class.

But I couldn’t find there, any investment products in forex/futures market especially those are based on algorithmic trading. I thought it was under the hedge fund class, but it wasn’t.

I’ve been wondering what is the perspective of the investment industry towards FX-based investment products? Does it really not belong to any of those asset classes, does it really not considered as a proper opportunity of investment by institutional investors? I’ve never took any courses in investing so i’d like to know how the investment in fx market (especially the ones based on systematical trading systems) are viewed by the investment industry.

I know some professional and well known FX managers, like the Dynex Corp, and several Managed Account products are also offered by regulated FX businesses, but where do all these belong to in the investment asset class map? Could anyone shed some light on this? Thanks in advance.

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