re: Masters in Finance, Law School, or MBA in 3-4 years?

Came up with a wonderful quasi free market approach to this. Every few years either state bar associations or ABA offer to purchase back law licenses of lawyers who dont want to be in the business anymore. Lawyers that stay in, get increased access to clients, and more work. Lawyers that leave can use money to pursue other ventures, pay off debts, etc...

Now, board tear that to shreds.

Assuming I am going to grad school. What is better General bsba at a top univ in state. Or fin degree at local mid tier univ.

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Masters in Finance, Law School, or MBA in 3-4 years?


If you were 21 years old, graduating in December, and had no idea what to do, how does one go about this decision?

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As a guy with an MBA working in institutional investments. And also a guy married to a woman who recently retired from a law firm. I'll share a couple thoughts.

1st, I doubt that you can get into a good MBA program without at least 3 years work experience. Either that or you'll have to ace the GMAT test.

2nd, after seeing what the law profession does to people I couldn't recommend that profession.

3rd. so that leaves Finance. Given the lack of conviction about what you want to do, a degree in Finance may be a good way to go. You can always go back and get and MBA as well if you like.

In the investment field, a masters degree in Finance would be a good basis for going after a CFA (Chartered Finanical Analyst) designation. This will open a lot of doors for you and make you good money.

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Masters in Finance, Law School, or MBA in 3-4 years?


This CFA you speak of. Is it worth anything?

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It is if you want to become a portfolio manger. You pulling my chain?

Blee you been doing more than merely thinking about it, bro.

When I worked in commercial banking for banks and a public commercial finance company the attorneys on staff had very cush jobs compared to those working for external firms or private practice regarding stress and work load. They certainly didn't work more hours than those of us that were analysts or lenders and were very well paid.

An external atty we engaged on a complex deal to a small insurance company left the legal profession about a year later and became a head hunter with a firm focused on attorney placements. He was an excellent attny, but after 15 years I guess burn out took over.

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Just been thinking about it a lot lately.

Hopefully I will be able to get it off my mind after Saturday.

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LOL What level?

Of the 6 analyst/pms in our office we have 5 MBAs, 4 CFAs (plus one working on Level 3), one Masters in IT, one Phd in economic history and one masters in International policy.

Note: The one not seeking a CFA has an Ivy undergrad in Economics, MBA as well as a masters in IT plus 25 years experience in the business.

The two relationship managers have MBAs plus one is a CFA both with over 30 years experience.

There are 4 of us on this board sitting for level 2 tomorrow.

Let me know if you guys need a janitor with a CFA in the next couple of years.

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Our NET annualized 20 year return is 14.5% So what we do works

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Mine is better, see THF sig.

If it hasn't been said, JDMBA. 4 years, 2 great degrees that go very well together when done right.

Oh yeah . . . F$%k finance.

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Very nice. What is "what you do"? Quant shop?

What's the risk adjusted return?

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We're small cap value contrarians. Bottom up fundamental analysis. We're typically, low beta, with high tracking error, high forcast growth rates and low turnover. We generally tell clients if they want tracking error they should hire us. LOL....... We're sort of old fashioned, you know crunch the numbers figure out what a company's business plan should look like, interview mgmt and see if they see things the same way we do. Then buy or not. Also look at how they compare to the industry, why are they oversold, or trading at a discount. And more.......

Example: We bought 8 womens apparel retailers in the fall of 2008. Nobody on the street would touch them, lots of sellers of those stocks at that time. We stayed away from retailers with significant debt and see what kind of burn rate they had and if they could sustain themselves through the tough market conditions.

As for risk adjusted returns we never really bother calculating risk adjusted returns. With those 20 year numberss and the fact that we are looking for LONG term investors things work out well. We explain what we do why we do it and how we do it and let the guy that makes us 5% or 10% of his portfolio figure out HIS portfolio risk.

We don't try and compare ourselves to Index weightings at all and many companies we buy have no wall street estimates, so doing some comparisons vs. current market analysis is difficult. Plus, toss in the bias on the Sell side and what are those estimates worth anyway?