1. CFA Certification Program and Sell-Side Analysts Qiang Kang Xi Li Tie Su Discussant: Chih-Yung Lin

2. 1-2  The CFA program substantially improves the recommendation performance of analysts that join in the program.  Analysts improve their performance when going through the CFA program as candidates but stop such improvements after completing the program. The Contribution

3. 1-3  I consider that the paper is very interesting and completed.  I only have several suggestions.

4. 1-4 Performance and risk-taking behavior  using the Carhart (1997) four-factor model regression: Beta, size, book-to-market, and momentum factors.  the daily returns on recommendation portfolios of individual analysts

5. 1-5 Table 2: Summary Statistics of the Variables

6. 1-6 Dynamic Performance Comparison  Maybe you can show the Dynamic Performance Comparison of CFA and Non-CFA analysts.

7. 1-7 Dynamic Performance Comparison  Analysts improve their performance when going through the CFA program as candidates but stop such improvements after completing the program.  Also, you can use difference-in-difference or event study to test this issue again.

8. 1-8 The correlation between CFA Program and WSJSTAR : Table 3. Analyst Performance and the CFA Program

9. 1-9

10. 1-10 Macro economic effects  The regression has included a year effect.  However, this does not seem to be sufficient for controlling the macroeconomic effects.  Ex: The role of good and bad economic times, industrial production index, inflation, credit spread, and term spread.

11. 1-11 Possible Additional Testable Hypotheses 1  The data are from January 1994 through December 2000.  Does the results still the same during the dot-com bubble?  It is very interesting to see what happens between CFA and Non-CFA analysts’ performance during the dot-com bubble.

12. 1-12 Possible Additional Testable Hypotheses 2  You can use other five-factor model to do the robustness check.