I have passed both. Took the CPA because I’m an accountant; took the CFA for ego; probably a waste of time, but I didn’t have to pay for it.
I actually disagree with the previous posters based on your background, and I think the CFA may be the easier route for you to go down.
CFA Part 1 is weighted heavily toward Intermediate Accounting 1 knowledge, which will give you trouble and require studying. Other than that though, you should be good with the economics, statistics, finance, fixed income/equity securities, and minimal knowledge on alternative investments and derivatives. Overall, you should have a decent foundation for Part 1.
Part 2 is difficult to know. It will requires you to have a very good working knowledge of how to value securities and derivatives and the accounting knowledge requires a good understanding of intermediate accounting II. If you plan on taking the exam, and you don’t have an accounting degree, this will be almost all new knowledge that you will need to learn. At the end of the day, tough, it’s a lot of math and memorization of formulas. With an economics degree, especially if you have an econometrics background, I don’t think the math would be too challenging, just require you to learn the process.
First two parts are multiple choice with only three answer choices, so worse case, you get 33.3% on the questions you don’t know (unless you’re really unlucky). Third part has case studies and weighs heavily towards portfolio management, which, again, you sound like you have a background in.
I’d say the CPA would be a more difficult exam for you. You don’t have a background in regulation/taxes, auditing, or financial accounting, so you would need to learn almost everything. The only part you have a foundation for on the CPA is BEC.
As for timeframe, it would, arguably, take you longer to get the CPA than the CFA, especially considering you can’t sit the exam yet. You can take the CFA Part 1 in Dec 2017, which would require minimum studying, Part 2 next June 2018, which would require a bit more studying, and close it out in June 2019. You could have the whole thing knocked out in two years.
The final thing I’ll say is you appear to meet the work experience requirements for the CFA already, while you don’t appear to meet the work requirements for the CPA – this would depend on your specific work history and state requirements – so once you passed the CFA, you could begin using the designation right away while the CPA would possibly require two more years and a career shift.
As another poster stated, it really depends on your goals and future plans more than anything.
Best of Luck.
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