June 2 (Bloomberg) -- A record 139,900 candidates enrolled for the Chartered Financial Analyst exam in June, an increase of 9 percent from last year as applicants seek a hiring edge in the recovering financial-services industry.
The number of registrations rose 12 percent in Asia, 9 percent in Europe and 5 percent in the Americas, the Charlottesville, Virginia-based CFA Institute said today in a statement. The first level of the exam is in December and June; the final two levels are administered only in June. Fewer than half the applicants at each level passed last June.
Candidates take the test hoping the certification can lead to better jobs, higher salaries and a deeper understanding of finance. Financial firms worldwide have cut more than 346,000 workers since the credit crisis began in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. U.S. banks posted their highest profits in two years in the first quarter, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said last month.
“At this time of global economic instability, we believe it is especially important for the investment industry to be led by professionals who put investors’ interests first,” John Rogers, chief executive officer of the CFA Institute, said in the statement. “Finance markets cannot function effectively without ethical behavior, and transparency, and CFA charterholders are integral to this.”
Candidates from 160 countries are scheduled for the three levels of the exam. Forty percent of registrations for the test in June come from Asia, according to the CFA Institute statement. Applications from China climbed 19 percent to 15,700. India had the largest increase, 39 percent to 11,800. The U.S. had the most registrations with 38,200, up 3 percent from a year earlier.
The Topics
There are about 88,700 CFA charter holders globally, according to the organization’s website. The not-for-profit CFA Institute said candidates spend an average of 300 hours studying for each phase of the test.
Topics range from ethical standards and securities valuation to financial statement analysis and portfolio management. Completing all three levels costs about $2,500 and takes an average of four years.
The CFA program started in 1963 and stems in part from Benjamin Graham, a pioneer of value investing who mentored Warren Buffett and advocated a rating system for financial analysts.
The door shuts on the six astronauts for the next 520 days
Six would-be cosmonauts have entered a sealed facility where they will spend 18 months with no windows and only e-mail contact with the outside world.
The men are taking part in the Mars500 project, which aims to simulate a mission to Mars.
They entered the craft, located at a medical institute in Moscow, just before 1100 BST on Thursday.
Scientists say the study will help them understand how humans would cope on a long journey to another world.
During a press conference on Thursday morning, the six men - three Russians, two Europeans and a Chinese man - all described what motivated them to take part in the experiment.
Twenty-six year old Wang Yue from China, the youngest of the volunteers, said he was excited to be involved in a project that he felt would be "excellent for science and for all of humankind".
French volunteer Romain Charles acknowledged that it would be a "difficult" mission and said that he would miss his family and "the Sun and fresh air".
Space on Earth The project has been designed to be as realistic as possible even though some elements - such as the weightless conditions of spaceflight - cannot be recreated here on Earth.
"They will have to cope with limited consumables, for example," said Dr Martin Zell from the European Space Agency, a key partner in the project.
When the very first human steps on Mars, I will be able to say, 'yeah, I helped do that'
Diego UrbinaEuropean Mars500 participant
"That means everything will be onboard at the start. There will be no re-load, re-supply whatsoever. It will be like a real mission."
The craft is based at Moscow's Institute of Biomedical Problems and comprises a series of interconnected steel canisters. The total interior volume is about 550 cubic metres.
Four of the tubes provide the living and working environment on the "journey" to and from Mars. Their interior has been decorated with wood panelling to give the cylinders a more homely feel.
A fifth module is a mock-up of the Red Planet itself, an enclosed room with a floor covered in rocks and sand.
THE LAYOUT OF THE MARS500 'SPACESHIP'
MEDICAL MODULE: The 12m-long cylinder acts as the laboratory. Should a crewmember become ill, he can be isolated and treated here
HABITABLE MODULE: The main living quarters. The 20m-long module has beds, a galley, a social area. It also acts as the main control room
LANDING MODULE: This will only be used during the 30-day landing operation. There is room only for the three crewmembers who will visit the "surface"
STORAGE MODULE: The 24m-long module is divided into four compartments, to store food and other supplies, to house a greenhouse, a gym a refrigeration unit
SURFACE MODULE: To walk across the soil and rocks of Mars, crewmembers must put on Orlan spacesuits and pass through an airlock
About half-way through the mission, three of the crew will have to "land" on this "surface" and walk about on it while dressed in heavy space suits.
The "cosmonauts" will be commanded by 38-year-old marine engineer and astronaut trainer Alexey Sitev, who has only recently been married.
His compatriots - Sukhrob Kamolov (32) and Alexander Smoleevskiy (33) - have medical backgrounds. The two Europeans in the group - Diego Urbina (27) and Romain Charles (31) - are engineers by training. Wang Yue has a "day job" training Chinese astronauts.
Near a hundred experiments will be performed during the "journey"
Colombian-Italian Diego Urbina said his motivation came from his desire to work in space research.
"I'm also very interested in being a part of the story of getting humans to Mars," he told BBC News. "When the very first human steps on Mars, I will be able to say, 'yeah, I helped do that'. That will make me feel very proud."
Scientific investigations during the experiment will assess the effect that isolation has on various psychological and physiological aspects such as stress, hormone levels, sleep quality, mood and the benefits of dietary supplements.
Dr Berna van Baarsen, from the Free University Medical Center, Amsterdam, Holland, is a principal investigator on Mars500.
"We expect Mars500 to have Earth applications, in understanding group dynamics connected to isolation and loneliness, for example," she said.
"I hope it will also help us understand better some groups, such as those elderly people who are isolated in their homes. It should tell us about coping behaviours."
The experiment even simulates surface operations at the Red Planet The spaceship itself will come under scrutiny, also, as the crew monitor their surroundings to see which types of bacteria take hold and thrive in the enclosed space.
All of the results of these investigations will have to be emailed to "mission control" as the organisers of the project intend to introduce a 20-minute, one-way time-delay in communications to mirror the real lag in sending messages over the vast distance between Mars and Earth.
"Everything will be done in a telemedicine environment, where the crew has to do the analysis and we receive the data by telemetry," said Dr Zell, who heads up Europe's space station utilisation programme. This 520-day mock mission with its 30 days of "surface operations" is the final phase of the three-part Mars500 project.
Look around the spacecraft that will be the crew's home for almost 18 months
There have already been two smaller studies, one lasting 14 days and another taking 105 days to complete. Space agencies describe Mars as the "ultimate destination" for human explorers. However, they do not possess the technology to complete such an endeavour and are unlikely have it for many years yet.
KUALA LUMPUR: A virtual friendship cost a 47-year-old housewife a very real RM1.2mil.
The con man she had befriended on the Internet did not just wipe out her savings but also that of her mother, sister, niece and her husband’s funds for investments.
The woman, who only wanted to be known as Madam Lee, said a man who claimed to be a British offshore engineer named Jeff Brian Manik had added her to his list of online friends last year.
Serious matter: Chong speaking to reporters at Wisma
MCA in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. On his right is Lee.
Lee said the man told her that he was sending 10 gifts for Easter, including a designer wrist watch, perfume, a Louis Vuitton bag, jewellery, a laptop computer, a camera and his latest picture through a courier service in April.
“He asked me to pay RM16,500 as a deposit to claim those gifts, which I did by banking the money into two local bank accounts, but I did no see any gifts in the end,” she told a press conference held by MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Michael Chong yesterday.
She said she received an e-mail from a man said to be Manik’s agent about two weeks later who told her Manik wanted to invest in property in Malaysia and needed her help to handle his £2.3mil for the transaction. “I was convinced after I met the agent at a hotel with a suitcase of pound sterling notes,” she said.
Lee said she deposited cash close to RM400,000 with various agents via various account names between April 20 and May 11 for the transfer of the money here.
She said she deposited RM586,000 into a company account on May 16 after she received a call from one of the agents that there was a 5% tax charge on the £2.5mil.On May 26, Lee said she paid another RM258,000 to the same company.
Lee said she felt something was amiss when she never received the gifts but she was convinced by the so-called agent about the so-called Manik’s interest in investing in Malaysia.
“I just wanted to help a friend but I did not expect it to turn out like this, I just want the money back to repay my family and friends,” she said, adding that she had never met Manik.
This week, she lodged a police report. Chong said he had received complaints from 18 women of a similar cheating scam with losses amounting to more than RM2.4mil since 2007.
“Please be wary of these con men,” he said. “Some of these women were not only cheated of their hearts but all their money, too.”
Chong said the British High Commission had received many complaints of such cases where a man with a British accent would befriend a woman through the Internet.
