The ancient Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts.

The Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.

In the Medieval era, knights took the "peacock vow" at the end of the Christmas season each year to re-affirm their commitment to chivalry.

And today, we have our New Year's Resolutions. But how great are we at keeping them?

A 2007 study by Richard Wisemen from the University of Bristol involving 3,000 people showed that 88% of those who set New Year resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study's participants were confident of success at the beginning.

As we've covered the MBA subject briefly in a recent post and many readers wrote in for more, a natural follow up would be the classic question: CFA or MBA?

A very, very popular question among potential candidates compares the CFA charter to an MBA - which would be better? Like most comparisons, the answer is - it depends.
Firstly, it’s a very tricky thing to compare a CFA charter and an MBA - they’re fundamentally different creatures addressing different disciplines. However, at the same time there is a real need to evaluate these two qualifications side-by-side these days, as many up-and-comers looking to reinforce their CVs look to these two qualifications and are not clear about what each can offer to them and their careers. 

In trying to address this scenario, I will therefore critique both qualifications based on the benefits gained from a career perspective, and the costs involved. Always remember - the better qualification depends on your individual case. Read these points carefully and consider your own case before deciding which to pick (if at all).

#1. CFA: great for finance

The Dec Level I CFA candidates take the exam this weekend. Knowing & preparing what you're going to bring can make a lot of difference in your exam - taking the exam when you know you're running out of pencils, or that your calculator is getting iffy unnecessarily piles onto the already-stressful environment.

As the following years and levels piled on, I've added a few must-bring items of my own. Here is my definitive list of things to bring to the exam that you should not miss. Take a shopping trip 1 or 2 days beforehand and try to get all the items on this list.

mod note (Andy): good luck to everyone taking the CFA this weekend!

Warning: this is a ranty post.

This article has a go at well-meaning friends, family and colleagues, whom probably only want the best for me and are just concerned about me when I was tearing my hair out as a CFA candidate.

But sometimes the stuff that people say to me as a CFA candidate makes me want to bash my head against a wall. Or bash theirs instead.

Here are my top 10. What are yours?

There's a lot of information on the internet on the CFA qualification and why you should do it, but most of them comes across as too 'infomercially', that is, they often are written by people trying actively to get more CFA enrollments. What we really need is a bunch of people who've done the whole thing to give an honest skinny on what they really think is useful about the CFA charter.

Here's a straight-to-the-point, frank list of reasons why a CFA could be useful to you. If you're on the fence and seeking to know more, use this information to make a wise decision on whether this challenging set of exams is worth the effort.

How well do you expect to perform in Level III?

Since the June exam results, we've covered Level I and Level II extensively. Our analysis broke down the topics' performance, pass/fail differences, estimated the minimum passing score, and a whole ton of other insightful stuff that you should read up on if you're prepping for your own exam. (See all the links to all our analysis posts here)

One of the most frequent questions we've had following these posts is 'when are you going to post Level III'?

Last weekend we got down to crunching the numbers for Level III, and so...how about a start now?

Last week (12th September) was the last deadline to register for the CFA December Level I 2012 exams. The gate's closed now. If you were planning to take Dec Level I, hopefully you managed to sign up!

In the recent weeks we've been getting queries from candidates that have signed up in the last minute. These candidates mostly have been worrying about one thing: do I have enough time to study and pass since I've just registered?

There has been a lot written on the usefulness of the CFA qualification towards your career, but this post isn't another one of them. Instead, for the ones that are considering the CFA charter (and quite a few candidates that may not have read all the fine print), today we explain exactly what you will need to do in order to obtain and earn the right to use the CFA charter.