Is the CFA useful for getting into Self Employed Trading or other 'Employed' Trading Roles?

Absolutely not. If that was the case, every CFA holder would be a hot shot trader. At the end of the day, all that matters is do you have a strategy? What do you trade? Can you explain it? What's your risk/reward? How long do you keep on the trade? How do you execute your trade without slippage? What if it moves against you? More importantly, do you have a track record? FYI, if you're drawing triangles and chart patterns. That is NOT a strategy. It has to be systematic, and I'm not talking about HFT/MFT or Algos. I'm talking about actual conviction that is based on a signal, not because of some lines you drew. The market isn't going to be like, "Oh look, so and so drew a trend line, and it's about to bounce off it. Buy!". I love these retail traders sharing their charts like anyone gives a shit. If you see some wanna be a tiktok trader selling his course talking about trend lines, triangles, and only using historical data without actual backing. Run.

My recommendation is to stay with futures. Imo, cash equities is not the place to be, and I'm sure there are ALOT of seasoned traders who can agree with me. It's highly manipulative, liquidity sucks and it does own thing day to day. Unless you're doing some kind of statarb or hedging, which i doubt you are doing. That's why Jim Simon doesn't touch equities. You may have a strategy, but it may not transition from futures to cash equities. That's why I don't touch it. And people tend to over trade. The market only moves in three directions, up down and sideways. If you don't see a trade to put on, that's fine. Sit on the sideline and wait. People feel the need to be pressured to always have a trade on, and when volume and liquidity are non-existent, they get pissed off. You need to understand what you're trading, how it trades, and what moves the market.