From a business perspective, a good presenter will always have the edge in the short term over a much deeper thinker who can detect genuine value, but lacks the necessary communication skills. There is no law of economics that says a good bullshitter cannot make as much money in the short term out of fund management as the cerebral thinker. Over time, profound investment talent deserves to come to the fore, but the history of the past 40 years suggests that it is far from being the only route to success.

The biggest problem with this issue, however, is simply the evidence that neither qualification is sufficient or necessary to succeed as an investor. Many great investors have managed to beat the markets without either an MBA or a CFA, or even in some cases any qualifications at all. I can detect little evidence that firms that have the pick of the graduates from the best universities are consistently capable of training the best fund managers. Indeed, to the extent that formally trained investors are constrained by false models such as the capital asset pricing model, it can be a positive disadvantage to have secured the investment profession's most demanding qualifications. If your mind has been trained to think only in terms of alpha and beta, you are almost certainly dead on arrival as a fund manager.

My own experience has been that value-adding fund managers are the exception rather than the rule. It is more important to entrust your money to someone whose age, experience and tolerance for risk matches your own than it is to look closely at any qualifications. Integrity and commitment - about which both the MBA and CFA are silent - matter more than either set of letters after your name, reassuring though the latter, in particular, may be.

David Fuller's view In my observation, some of the worst money managers are one-shot wonders who achieve sufficient notoriety to become marketable assets, usually for hedge fund promoters.

Some of the most competent investors that I have met are highly experienced and successful people, often in semi or full retirement, who draw on their former career skills and energy in managing their own money.