CAIA Blog

Check in with the new CAIA Blog a few times a week to read CAIA staff members' musings on new developments in the AI sphere. We welcome comments here, but if a lively conversation starts, we invite you to move your discussions to the CAIA Forums, which are structured for greater give-and-take in sharing ideas.

Continuing the Education of Our Members: The SET
Thu, 01/19/2012
The world of alternative investments is constantly evolving and the CAIA Association is committed to helping its members stay abreast of new developments in the field. Our curriculum is updated regularly to reflect current issues in alternative investments. To ensure that members are informed about changes to our curriculum, we developed the Self-Evaluation Tool (SET). This web-based tool is intended to help members evaluate their knowledge of...
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CAIA Canada Holiday Prognostications a Big Hit - Again
Tue, 12/20/2011
This week's CAIA blog post brings together the predictions of four back-to-back presenters, all with a different take on events in the immediate future of the alternative investment industry. On the night of December 5, Canadian CAIA members and candidates met to hear pearls of wisdom from four grizzled veterans of the investment industry: Richard Rémillard, Executive Director of the CVCA; Tris Lett, CIO at Integra Capital Management; Anthony...
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Asia is the Alternative
Thu, 12/08/2011
The world of finance has turned much of its attention to the East, and so has the CAIA Association. As the investment landscapes of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea shift from more traditional investment vehicles to alternatives, so too will there be a growing demand for the type of specialized education that the CAIA program provides. Just last month, Hossein Kazemi, Program Director, and I attended the launch of CAIA Korea, the latest addition...
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Inside the CAIA Curriculum Department
Thu, 11/17/2011
How does the CAIA Association determine what finance professionals need to know to bear the CAIA designation? It meets this challenge by employing a full-time team of leading alternative investment academics and practitioners as well as expert volunteers and consultants, all of whom make up the CAIA Curriculum team. Its charge: teach candidates the core competencies required to create, manage, and monitor an institutional quality portfolio of...
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Alternatives Reign at Schwab IMPACT
Thu, 11/10/2011
Last week, two of my fellow Global Business Development team members and I attended the Schwab Impact 2011 conference at the Moscone Center in beautiful San Francisco. Over 4000 delegates attended the four day event, which filled the conference hall with more than 300 exhibitors. The list of keynote speakers included such high profilers as Charles R. Schwab, Bill Gross, Liz Ann Sonders, and Tony Blair. Perhaps most noteworthy was the large...
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7 Billion and Growing: Discussion about investing in sustainable farming at the World Agriculture Investment Conference
Thu, 11/03/2011
The World Agriculture Investment Conference, Europe, took place in London on October 4th and 5th. Global demographics are driving the farmland investor story, while owners of farmland are increasingly employing high technology to increase crop yields and bring previously fallow land into production. Despite the recent volatility in financial markets, farmland values continue to escalate in many areas of the world. This week, the world...
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New enrollments up 33% for CAIA Program
Fri, 09/09/2011
New candidates for the September 2011 exam session increased by 33% over March 2010. More candidates enrolled for this cycle than any other since 2008. New enrollments are up 82% in Asia, 29% in the Americas, and 10% in EMEA. Candidates from Asia made up 25% of the total, up from 20% six months ago. Singapore and Korea each sent more than twice as many candidates as in March. Level I registration broke records in several regions such as Brazil...
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Commodities/Energy Risk Management Meeting Co-sponsored by CAIA Chicago
Tue, 07/12/2011
Members of three local Chicago professional organizations came together on June 30 for a presentation on “Commodities/Energy Risk Management.” The CAIA Chicago chapter joined with the Chicago Chapter of the Professional Risk Managers' International Association (PRMIA) and the Arditti Center for Risk Management at DePaul University, to co-sponsor the meeting held at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Professor Ali Fatemi, Professor and...
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CAIA Grader Selection Event
Mon, 06/27/2011
CAIA staff recently participated in its semi-annual Grader Selection event at which they enjoyed a pizza luncheon while selecting graders for the upcoming September 2011 Grading Event. As you know, the Level II examination includes three essay questions, the responses to which must be reviewed and scored by graders. Twenty-four graders are needed to complete this task. Graders are organized into teams of two: a senior grader, who has been a...
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Cozy crowd gets familiar with much-imitated spirit
Thu, 02/24/2011
Maybe it was the recent foul weather or perhaps the slightly higher attendance fee (a surcharge was added as the venue needed to ship in special stemware for imbibers) but the 30 souls who made time to attend the CAIA Canada Whisky Tasting and Networking Event were not disappointed—least of all because fewer numbers meant more of the four bottles to go around! As blog-readers might know, the Toronto chapter does semi-annual Congratulations...
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