The AFA annual meeting is one of the most authoritative international academic meetings in the field of finance, and the topics discussed in this meeting represent the research highlights in finance. On the AFA annual meeting, one top researcher in finance is elected to be the president who will give a presidential address.The presidents are the authorities in the field of finance, so the presidential addresses not only discuss the new findings and propose the important issues & the latest frontiers in this specific field, but also give a guideline for future financial research. This paper reviews all presidential addresses in last 20 years in the aspects of asset pricing, corporate finance, investor behavior, financial instruments, market microstructure and financial market as well as summarizes research transition by bibliometric analysis and visualization on SSCI literature. This paper will be helpful for researchers at home and abroad to understand the development context of international financial research frontiers and be inspiring for domestic financial research, which reveals the essential fact that financial research stems from and serves the real economy.