NakedPuts2011

People used to ask me about CPA vs CFA.  Although I haven’t taken the CPA exams, I often pointed out that accountants have good job security and decent pay; many seem to find it boring work, but they’re ok with that.  Finance has less job security and is usually quite interesting, and there’s a small chance of really hitting it big.  In good times, people are more attracted to finance and the potential big win, in bad times, many people like the job security of accounting.
There’s also an observation I made about financial statements - which accountans might object to - I am happy to be better informed if any accountants want to correct me.  My impression is that accounting is about ensuring that financial statements correctly record what has happened with a company (and perhaps record in a way that - hopefully legally - reduces things like tax burdens).  It’s backward looking in the sense that it’s focused on what happened and how to record it.  Financial analysis looks at accounting statments in order to determine what is happening with the company and where it’s going, so it’s more forward looking.  If you are into imagining the future, I would think that finance is more appealing than accounting on a purely intellectual level.