We asked CFA Institute Financial NewsBrief readers about the professional challenges they face. Arguably, a major contributor to investment returns is the ability to understand information.
In an age in which the velocity of information is accelerating, not surprisingly, more than 61% of 672 respondents said that "information overwhelm" was their biggest professional challenge. IBM, for example, estimates that about 3 exabytes (3 billion gigabytes) of data are created every day.
Which of the following challenges do you face most often in your professional life?
Almost one-third of respondents said that "managing stress" was most challenging. This result jibes with work done by the CFA Institute Research Foundation in the monograph "Fund Management: An Emotional Finance Perspective," in which the authors state, "The pressure to perform and the feelings of anxiety and stress that most of our respondents have about that pressure is palpable."
Perhaps encouragingly in this post-Great Recession environment, only a very small minority (about 6%) chose ethical dilemmas as a challenge.
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All posts are the opinion of the author. As such, they should not be construed as investment advice, nor do the opinions expressed necessarily reflect the views of CFA Institute or the author's employer.