The Plain Bagel: End of an Investment Career? — CFA Institute Partnership and Industry Transformation
Richard Coffin discusses how the financial analysis profession is transforming in the age of AI in content prepared with the CFA Institute on investment career paths. Value-adding and non-value-adding roles are diverging.
This video is compiled from The Plain Bagel's investment career content prepared in collaboration with the CFA Institute.
Does AI Threaten Financial Analysts? Coffin gives a nuanced answer to this question: routine data collection, report generation, and standard valuation operations are being automated. But context analysis, ethical reasoning, and client relationships maintain the human advantage.
Is CFA Certification Worth It in 2026? The CFA program provides deep analytical frameworks and financial ethics training. In the age of AI, this education becomes more, not less important: strong fundamentals are needed to interpret AI outputs.
Which Career Paths Are Growing? - Portfolio management (AI-assisted decision making) - Risk management (complex scenario analysis) - ESG and sustainable finance - Crypto and digital asset analysis
"What A Year..." Year-End Review What stood out in Coffin's year-end video: in 2025, the best performing strategies were not value investing but growth stocks with AI stories. Will this divergence continue in 2026, or will it close? That's being debated.
Message to Individual Investors Before chasing complex strategies, understand basic costs: management fees, tax impact, and transaction costs are silently eroding a large portion of your annual returns.
Disclaimer: This site does not provide financial advice.
