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Welcome to The Candidate,your guide to CFA Switzerland By Christian Dreyer, CFA @CFA_CH

Congratulations to all of

you who recently passed the June exam, and Welcome to the first issue of The Candidate, the new bi-annual newsletter of CFA Switzerland for all CFA candidates in Switzerland! With The Candidate, we hope to help you make the best of your time preparing for the CFA exams by

introducing the resources available to you through CFA Switzerland, and to start building a relationship with you, the future CFA alumni. As a Society, we have a key stake in helping you succeed so that you can join our ranks as soon as possible. As a matter of fact, you may already join the

Society as a Candidate Member

now to benefit from its many advantages - but read more about that below.

Unless you are among the happy minority of Level 3 candidates who just received their passed notice, I‘m sure you can relate to a slightly modified football quip: after the

exam is before the exam. I don‘t need to say that you will need to start preparing again soon if you wish to sit for the December exam.

We have started our homework as well with two candidate focus groups in Geneva and Zürich. You will find out more about how the results

from these sessions will

influence our offering to you by reading on, as well as looking out for the occasional emails that we will be sending you.

Last, but not least, let me highlight the Open House info sessions we are conducting together with CAIA. These sessions should be of

particular relevance for your friends and peers who are interested in either program, so please let them know about it. If there‘s anything I can help you with (comments, ideas, criticism), please don‘t hold back!!

THE CANDIDATE

The Candidate is a biannual newsletter of the CFA Society Switzerland. It is distributed via email to CFA Candidates in Switzerland and Friends. Its sister publication The Charter is distributed monthly to Members of CFA Switzerland.

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3 Candidate MembershipJoin Switzerland‘s leading network of in-vestment professionals

In the past, CFA candidates could only become Members of the Society if they were Members of CFA Institute - which they normally are not. We now offer CFA Candidates a membership to

the CFA Society Switzerland only, which is valid as long as you are active in the CFA Program.

Joining the CFA Society Switzerland as a Candidate Member will give you access to the growing network and services of the Society during your studies. The Membership will be moved seamlessly to a combined Membership with CFA

Institute and the Society as soon as you have passed Level 3, at which time it is necessary to apply for affiliate or regular membership in CFA Institute.

As a Candidate Member, you will have access to the following Members-only benefits:

• Events: Attend Continuing Education and topical events at regular membership rates

• Networking: Join an organisation of over 2,300 members to network with investment professionals and fellow candidates at members-only events

• Prep-Courses: CFA Switzerland works with the leading CFA exam review course provider Kaplan/Schweser to develop a suitable format for the Swiss market. There is a special discount for Candidate Members.

• Member Value Pack: Discount of up to 30% on regular annual subscription rates on some Swiss media products and other products and services (see separate article),

• volunteering: join subject matter experts and peers in interesting, fun and relevant volunteering projects for the benefit of the Society and its Members.

We will obviously continue to provide

our well established perks for not-yet Member candidates, namely:

• After Exam Event: we organise a networking beer bash event

• Charter Award Ceremony: Once you have passed level III, you are invited for free to the CFA Award Ceremony

• Candidate Sponsorship Pool: Do you require a sponsor as a Level III candidate? CFA Institute requires that a CFA Charterholder sponsor each new regular member and we have network of Charterholders who can help.

Joining the Society as Candidate Member is easy, you just need to -

• be registered with CFA Institute for Level I, II, III of the CFA Program®,

• have signed the Candidate Responsibility Statement, and

•pay an annual membership fee of CHF 75Click here to be taken to a web form to register for your Membership in CFA Switzerland. You will have access to all benefits of Membership as soon as your

registration has been processed.

Focus on CandidatesSupporting Candidates is part of the Society‘s mission as candidates are the #1 pipeline for new Members, You are also important ambassadors and

creators of awareness for the CFA designation in the general public, thanks to your enthusiasm.

In order to understand how the Society can best support candidates in their preparation for the exam, we have conducted two focus group sessions in Zürich and Geneva in July. Those sessions were attended by 8

and 9 candidates respectively. The candidates attending are clearly already well underway for their future volunteer careers as Members!

These discussions provide us with valuable insights into how candidates study in the age of the internet (hint: it still takes careful planning and discipline), what resources they use, how they evaluate resources (word of

mouth!) and which providers they trust. These insights will inform to ways in which we can better support candidates going forward.

One quick win that we are already preparing to put in place now are online forums for Swiss candidates. Clearly, there are a lot of online forums available already, but focus group participants made it clear that they

would welcome a forum where they could expect to meet their peers in person for an ad-hoc study group or a drink without travelling around the globe first.

Another very important suggestion from the focus groups concerned the live Mock exams offered by the Society. Those were deemed to be extremely valuable to the extent that they should be conducted twice

shortly before the exam. We will see what we can do about that - watch this space!

SAVE THE DATE

GETTING COZY WITH THE NEW NORMAL?Everybody agrees that we are in a new normal of financial repression,

indefinitely low interest rates and returns. But are we? Or is recent

rates activity a harbinger of even newer things to come? Discuss …

ASSET MANAGEMENT FORUM GENEVA

30 October 2013, 14.00h – 18.45h

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The Membership

Value Pack is designed to enhance Membership value by adding real-world benefits Members would normally not have access to. It is

complementary to all other Membership benefits like continuing education, networking and supporting the common cause.

We are happy to announce a new addition to the Membership Value Pack. Members now have access to Project Neptun. Project Neptun is a Back-to-School type bulk purchasing program for computers (Apple, HP, Lenovo) initiated by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). It is

only available to students at Swiss universities and select alumni organisations - like CFA Switzerland. The next sales window is expected to be available from 2 to 30 September. For more details, and to take advantage of Project Neptun, click over to its website. When you place your order, make sure to identify yourself as Member of CFA Society Switzerland - so join the Society now to benefit!

Also available is a carefully selected choice

of well known Swiss newspapers and

magazines.

Members may subscribe to those titles with discounts of up to 30% on the regular subscription

rate. Click on the logos below to find out more about the products. This offer is only available to new subscribers with a valid billing address in Switzerland for the duration of their Membership of CFA Switzerland.

For details of the offers, and to subscribe online, please follow this link. You will be directed to a web form hosted by the Society, where you

are asked to provide your selection(s) as well as your contact details and - crucially - your CFA Institute candidate number, which doubles as Society Membership number. Please allow up to four weeks before making any inquiries about the status of your order. The Society office will forward your details after validating your credentials. You will be invoiced separately by the publishers.

Membership Value PackTake the deep dive for value!

Click to benefit!Find out more about the titles by clicking on the logo. With the exception of PME Magazine, all titles are in the German language.

Let us know if you are interested in a product that is not included on this roster.

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Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun Link Neptun

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„Improve your decision making as a CFA

Charterholder by knowing of the dealings in the

backrooms of power.“

Harry Büsser, CFAHead Financial

Journalism

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Report from SingaporeBy Christian Takushi

The 66th CFA Annual conference was excellent (watch here). The President John Rogers called us all to action to make an effort to shape our industry positively and with integrity in

order to avert the otherwise inevitable regulatory squeeze that could push our industry into irrelevance, like once the utility industry.

The  conference had an excellent mix of investment strategy inputs and Continuing Education content. The academic insights of Nobel laureate Thomas Sargent (introduced by Robert

Litterman, famous for applying

Information Priors) were of practical

importance to investors. There was also good input on Integrity, Governance and Geopolitical Risks.

It's no question I'll try to register early for the next Annual Conference in Seattle. Back at BCV I've shared with many colleagues and they were eager to know more about the Institute. One joined us as volunteer, another asked

about the CE Seminars. One PM team said they are eagerly waiting for the first CFA CE Seminar in Lausanne this fall. It is a great satisfaction to be involved in volunteer work to help advance the Code & Standards and the CFA Society.

Volunteer of the monthChristian Takushi coordinates the Society‘s efforts to launch Lausanne as the next CFA Switzerland hotspot. He is CFA Ambassador to Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, where he is responsible for emerging markets strategy.

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3 Casting the net wider to forge alliances

The Society has a clear mission - to educate about and encourage professionalism and ethical behaviour as well as to promote the Code & Standards and the CFA designation in the Swiss market. The most efficient way to do all this is to work closely with other like-minded

organisations and authorities. We can bring to play a global, values-based and investor-centric perspective which has no parallels and is therefore of high value to our partners.

We have recently established contact with the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF),

which is in the lead for two legislative

projects that are of the utmost importance for finance in Switzerland: FIDLEG and FinfraG. As FIDLEG‘s remit is to introduce mandatory education for all market players (among many other things), every Charterholder has a strong interest in this project.

The Swiss Bankers‘ Association and SFAMA have

started a joint project to strengthen the basis for asset management in Switzerland. The

establishment of an ecosystem conducive to a change in competitiveness (relative to London for instance) and perception will

require a lot of hard work and input

from industry practitioners across the board. We have already had a first meeting to scope cooperation.

The touch points with Swiss Finance

Institute are manyfold and rich. We have identified areas such as the Research Foundation, the Society‘s

Financial Innovation Prize and other joint ventures as areas that are worth investigating further in detail. Watch this space!

Please don‘t hesitate to touch base if you have comments and suggestions on how to improve our industry outreach efforts.

CFA / CAIA Information eventWe are often asked to extoll the virtues of the CFA

designation versus CAIA. However, we firmly believe that both designations are fully complementary to each other for those who take a special interest in alternative investments. The high concentration of holders of both

designations in Switzerland is ample evidence of that. Many are surprised by this answer. That's why we've decided to co-host two information sessions together with CAIA Association in Zürich and Geneva. Participants in the events will -

• learn about the profiles and key characteristics of the CFA and CAIA designations,

• hear from an expert on the Swiss finance industry jobs market about the value proposition of the designations,

• understand what resources are available in preparing for the exams,

• ask questions from senior holders of both designations in an informal setting,

• network with like-minded peers.As you are already deeply involved with the CFA

designation, this event will be of limited benefit to you personally, we believe. But we need you to spread the word and tell your friends, colleagues and peers who might be interested to learn about and appreciate the CFA and the CAIA designation for themselves. Remember, the value of the designation lies as much in its content as in its reputation and awareness among the wider Swiss finance community.

We gratefully acknowledge sponsorship by our main

sponsor eFinancialCareers.ch, the expert platform for finance industry positions in Switzerland, and Kaplan Schweser.

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CFA Switzerland is a volunteer organisation,

driven in the interest of and by its Members. The Society always has a number of opportunities for volunteers to contribute their time and energy on stimulating projects and new ideas.

As a casual observer of the Society‘s activities, you may be aware of its standing committees working on Advocacy, Continuing Education and Social Events. However, you would not see projects that are in the

development pipeline. A Geneva based team of volunteers is

working hard to bring the Asset Management Forum format to Geneva in the fall. The Forum is successfully established in Zürich.

Similarly, another volunteer team is bringing the Swiss Pensions Conference, French edition to Romandie early next year, while preparations for the third edition of the Zürich version are underway (block 5 June 2014 in your agenda!).

Not quite as far progressed, yet, is an important project for an OTC Derivatives Conference later this year or early next. This event is meant to help the buy-side make sense of incoming CCP and collateralisation regulation and its impact on markets.

At the moment only at conversations stage are the projects for a Commodities Conference and a Private Wealth Conference to be held in Geneva, both planned for next year.

While financial innovation still has a

questionable reputation, we are keen to revive the Financial Innovation Prize.

Of strategic importance to the Society are the next two projects we are working on: We have identified Careers Services as a key area where we need to start providing relevant member benefits. Last, but not least, we are studying our options for a localisation module to complement the CFA designation in the Swiss

market - the project name is Swiss Finish.If you wish to know more about any of these

projects or become involved, please don‘t hesitate to call or send me an email. We are happy to accommodate almost every volunteer profile, irrespective of whether you are in a full-time job or on gardening leave ...

Calling all volunteersWork that pipeline!By Christian Dreyer, CFA

Feels like yesterday?Here‘s a scene from the traditional post-exam beer bash in Zürich that the Society invites CFA Candidates attending the exam venues in Geneva and Zürich. The relaxed atmosphere is clearly palpable. 1147 and 542 Candidates were registered for Zürich and Geneva respectively,

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Member‘s CornerLeviathan - the sequelBy Grégoire Post, CFA

The greater public has made it clear: the current crisis is an exclusive product of excessive liberal finance.  A horde of unregulated greedy

bankers swept over our

villages, poisoned our wells, and led us to our ruin. Shocking.

In the face of such an ominous scandal, people felt they needed

somebody in charge. There came the

inevitable saviour: the State, and its "mighty muscle".

With no political stance, I'll demonstrate how public institutions share the guilt for the crisis. More than that, their responsibility doesn’t stem from their passivity, but from a strong - and lethal -  interventionism.

Making the Law is no easy business. One should do it "with the

most delicate handling" only, "useless laws weaken the necessary laws" to wit French philosopher Montesquieu.

Therefore, when it comes to crisis, is the State the firefighter or the fire-starter?

This is the teaser version of a full length article appearing on the Society‘s blog shortly. The

Member‘s Corner is open to all Member contributions (no sales messages). Please

contact charter@cfaswitzerland.org.

The daily advocateThe Advocacy committee has recently responded to three consultations. The first one is in response to a proposal of

SIX Exchange Regulation to restrict the use of Swiss GAAP FER for SMI constituents, which we supported as we believe that Swiss GAAP FER contains too many gaps and is not sufficiently known to international

investors and thus created a market division.Later, Finma issued a

consultation about the partial revision of Circular 09/1 „Eckwerte der Vermögensverwaltung“. The Committee was largely supportive of the proposed changes, putting them in the context of the Code & Standards.

Finally, we responded to the Finma consultation about its proposed comprehensive review of the Circular on Market Behaviour rules, covering aspects of both insider trading and market abuse. The Committee

spent considerable time

on this consultation and provided qualified feedback to Finma.

All consultations are available online here (follow the link). The most recent comments have been made in German rather than English in order to comply with local practice. Please let us know what you think.

Upcoming eventsSave the date!Access Asia - Investor trip to Hong Kong and Mumbai, hosted by the University of St. Gallen‘s Asia Research Centre, 21-25 October

Access Asia brings together leading institutional investors from Switzerland

with the foremost Asian asset

managers in Real Estate/Infrastructure, Private Equity as well as Hedge Funds.

A special member rate of CHF 6400 applies. Follow this link for more.

CFA Institute European Investment Conference, London, 14-15 November

“Beyond Austerity” is this year‘s EIC theme which focuses on the solutions, with thought-provoking speakers tackling topics such as balancing austerity and strategies for growth,

opportunities for European investors in emerging markets and the future of finance. Follow this link for more information and to register.

FuW Opportunities 2014 - Investment allocation in times of uncertainty, Zürich, 14 November

CFA Switzerland and Finanz und Wirtschaft present the Investment Conference „Opportunities 2014 – investment allocation in times of uncertainty“, 14 November at Zurich Development Center in Zürich.

This high-quality conference for investment executives is offering unique learning experiences with renowned Swiss and international asset and investment analysts.

Already registered contributors are: Dylan Grice (Edelweiss Holdings), Yves Bonzon (CIO Pictet Wealth Management), Guy Miller (Head of Market Strategy Zurich Insurance

Group). More details are available here.

For all the Society‘s regular events, don‘t forget to consult the online event calendar often. You can also subscribe to the Society‘s event calendar using your MS Outlook application or on other calendar apps (Blackberry, iOS, Android) by following this link.

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