My CFA® blog/journal

Screw the CFA® naysayers, decided to pull the trigger commit to taking the CFA® Level I this December 1, 2012.

I'm keeping a little blog to help keep me on track, monitor my progress, and share the experience a little for my fellow and future CFA® takers.

http://seekingcfa.blogspot.it/

Hope it's somewhat enlightening/useful, welcome any comments or questions, and I'll try to respond in a timely fashion. I'm sure there are many others here going through the same experience and all your tips, help and support are greatly appreciated.

Cheers

 
Boreed:
Nice one, SB'd. I'm doing level 1 in December as well. PM me if you want to discuss any of the material or questions.

A quick question: how much studying time do you think having studied finance will actually save us? Because I signed up late but I've already covered most of the material during my MSF.

Really not sure yet how much time it'll save - I'll let you know once I've dived in a bit.

if you like it then you shoulda put a banana on it
 
frgna:
Boreed:
Nice one, SB'd. I'm doing level 1 in December as well. PM me if you want to discuss any of the material or questions.

A quick question: how much studying time do you think having studied finance will actually save us? Because I signed up late but I've already covered most of the material during my MSF.

Really not sure yet how much time it'll save - I'll let you know once I've dived in a bit.

It'll save a lot. I did an econ. degree and never touched the CFA econ or stats material. An MFin will cover a lot of the portfolio management material / market theories, accounting isn't that hard (GAAP vs IFRS is a bore though), stats, if you've never touched it, or don't have much maths behind you, could be tricky. overal, it's just a volume issue.

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

Best of luck chaps. Get Schweser, do shit load of practice questions (willing to give my L1 dec '11 and L2 '12 schweser practice exams books away) and get used to saying no to people. like this: "no, sorry, cant come out, got to study." "for what?" "this optional exam i want to do." "cool, does it qualify you to do anything?" "not really." "work are making you do it?" "nope" "ummm...okay then...bye"

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 
Oreos:
Best of luck chaps. Get Schweser, do shit load of practice questions (willing to give my L1 dec '11 and L2 '12 schweser practice exams books away) and get used to saying no to people. like this: "no, sorry, cant come out, got to study." "for what?" "this optional exam i want to do." "cool, does it qualify you to do anything?" "not really." "work are making you do it?" "nope" "ummm...okay then...bye"

Haha thanks - I'll take you up on the schweser L1 if you don't mind shipping them. PM me.

if you like it then you shoulda put a banana on it
 
Oreos:
Best of luck chaps. Get Schweser, do shit load of practice questions (willing to give my L1 dec '11 and L2 '12 schweser practice exams books away) and get used to saying no to people. like this: "no, sorry, cant come out, got to study." "for what?" "this optional exam i want to do." "cool, does it qualify you to do anything?" "not really." "work are making you do it?" "nope" "ummm...okay then...bye"

LOL. Yeh, I've been telling people "it's kind of like the Bar exam or ACCA, but not really."

 

If you can get your hands on Schweser's QBank, you should just drill those to start.

If you will give a good sense of what you need to focus on, and you might just learn it through the answer explanations as well.

Also, fuck GAAP vs IFRS like Oreos said.

Focus on the most weighted sections: Ethics, FRA, Equities, and Fixed Income.

 
Best Response

Hey guys,

I took level 1 in June 2012 and passed with >70% on most parts (got the middle section on alt inv and quant). It was pretty brutal because my preparation wasn't the best, but I think you can all learn from my mistakes.

I started studying in mid march but didn't really get into it until mid april. I used a combination of the CFA curriculum and the Schweser materials.

If I could go back again, this is exactly how I would study for level 1 (keep in mind I did do SOME of these things, but not all): 1 - completely master all the areas with the greatest weightings (ethics, quant, econ, fr&a, fixed income, equities) 2 - do NOT rely on schweser too much. schweser is great for learning the concepts but NOT for getting the questions right. schweser questions are worded in a very clear and easy to understand way.. the exam is NOT like this. the questions in the CFA curriculum and sample exams is a lot closer to the real thing. i know the CFA curriculum is a lot of info.. i didn't have time to read it all and while i don't recommend that, i do strongly recommend going through all the sample questions 3 - completely master the CFA sample exams. sleep with these, post them on your forehead, whatever it takes.. trust me you will thank me later. this is FUCKING KEY 4 - completely master ethics AGAIN. ethics will save you. if you're on the border, ethics will save you. don't be fooled by ethics questions on schweser.. i was getting 90% and up on schweser ethics but got 56% on the ethics portion of my first CFA sample exam. the CFA institute wants you to learn ethichs THEIR way.. so do it. you will thank yourself for it later.

PM me if there's other questions!

 
wannabeahfdude:
Hey guys,

I took level 1 in June 2012 and passed with >70% on most parts (got the middle section on alt inv and quant). It was pretty brutal because my preparation wasn't the best, but I think you can all learn from my mistakes.

I started studying in mid march but didn't really get into it until mid april. I used a combination of the CFA curriculum and the Schweser materials.

If I could go back again, this is exactly how I would study for level 1 (keep in mind I did do SOME of these things, but not all): 1 - completely master all the areas with the greatest weightings (ethics, quant, econ, fr&a, fixed income, equities) 2 - do NOT rely on schweser too much. schweser is great for learning the concepts but NOT for getting the questions right. schweser questions are worded in a very clear and easy to understand way.. the exam is NOT like this. the questions in the CFA curriculum and sample exams is a lot closer to the real thing. i know the CFA curriculum is a lot of info.. i didn't have time to read it all and while i don't recommend that, i do strongly recommend going through all the sample questions 3 - completely master the CFA sample exams. sleep with these, post them on your forehead, whatever it takes.. trust me you will thank me later. this is FUCKING KEY 4 - completely master ethics AGAIN. ethics will save you. if you're on the border, ethics will save you. don't be fooled by ethics questions on schweser.. i was getting 90% and up on schweser ethics but got 56% on the ethics portion of my first CFA sample exam. the CFA institute wants you to learn ethichs THEIR way.. so do it. you will thank yourself for it later.

PM me if there's other questions!

Thanks man, SB for your troubles. Peeking at the Schweser notes which I just got they actually don't seem all that much shorter than just doing the CFA stuff...I think I am going to stick to the CFAI materials for the moment and maybe look at Schweser later.

I can definitely see what you mean on learn CFA ethics their way - sometimes the answer is totally unrealistic (i.e. an analyst should pay for all expenses even if they are completely reasonable and everyone else is getting them and he discloses it in the report). But that's the CFA way. I've pretty much read the code and standards word for word so I'm feeling good on ethics now (35/40 on the practice questions after the code/standards section).

So you felt in general that the questions in the CFAI instructional material were about on par for the exam difficulty?

if you like it then you shoulda put a banana on it
 
frgna:
wannabeahfdude:
Hey guys,

I took level 1 in June 2012 and passed with >70% on most parts (got the middle section on alt inv and quant). It was pretty brutal because my preparation wasn't the best, but I think you can all learn from my mistakes.

I started studying in mid march but didn't really get into it until mid april. I used a combination of the CFA curriculum and the Schweser materials.

If I could go back again, this is exactly how I would study for level 1 (keep in mind I did do SOME of these things, but not all): 1 - completely master all the areas with the greatest weightings (ethics, quant, econ, fr&a, fixed income, equities) 2 - do NOT rely on schweser too much. schweser is great for learning the concepts but NOT for getting the questions right. schweser questions are worded in a very clear and easy to understand way.. the exam is NOT like this. the questions in the CFA curriculum and sample exams is a lot closer to the real thing. i know the CFA curriculum is a lot of info.. i didn't have time to read it all and while i don't recommend that, i do strongly recommend going through all the sample questions 3 - completely master the CFA sample exams. sleep with these, post them on your forehead, whatever it takes.. trust me you will thank me later. this is FUCKING KEY 4 - completely master ethics AGAIN. ethics will save you. if you're on the border, ethics will save you. don't be fooled by ethics questions on schweser.. i was getting 90% and up on schweser ethics but got 56% on the ethics portion of my first CFA sample exam. the CFA institute wants you to learn ethichs THEIR way.. so do it. you will thank yourself for it later.

PM me if there's other questions!

Thanks man, SB for your troubles. Peeking at the Schweser notes which I just got they actually don't seem all that much shorter than just doing the CFA stuff...I think I am going to stick to the CFAI materials for the moment and maybe look at Schweser later.

I can definitely see what you mean on learn CFA ethics their way - sometimes the answer is totally unrealistic (i.e. an analyst should pay for all expenses even if they are completely reasonable and everyone else is getting them and he discloses it in the report). But that's the CFA way. I've pretty much read the code and standards word for word so I'm feeling good on ethics now (35/40 on the practice questions after the code/standards section).

So you felt in general that the questions in the CFAI instructional material were about on par for the exam difficulty?

The questions on the CFA curriculum are slightly easier than the real thing and maybe just slightly harder than schweser... but the examples in the CFA curriculum are great to study. The best barometer for the real thing is the CFA sample exams.

Try to get ahold of prior years exams and measure yourself up that way. It will be the most effective use of your time when it comes to questions. Also, if you must use schweser, I recommend setting the difficulty to at least "medium" and up..

 
wannabeahfdude:
Hey guys,

I took level 1 in June 2012 and passed with >70% on most parts (got the middle section on alt inv and quant). It was pretty brutal because my preparation wasn't the best, but I think you can all learn from my mistakes.

I started studying in mid march but didn't really get into it until mid april. I used a combination of the CFA curriculum and the Schweser materials.

If I could go back again, this is exactly how I would study for level 1 (keep in mind I did do SOME of these things, but not all): 1 - completely master all the areas with the greatest weightings (ethics, quant, econ, fr&a, fixed income, equities) 2 - do NOT rely on schweser too much. schweser is great for learning the concepts but NOT for getting the questions right. schweser questions are worded in a very clear and easy to understand way.. the exam is NOT like this. the questions in the CFA curriculum and sample exams is a lot closer to the real thing. i know the CFA curriculum is a lot of info.. i didn't have time to read it all and while i don't recommend that, i do strongly recommend going through all the sample questions 3 - completely master the CFA sample exams. sleep with these, post them on your forehead, whatever it takes.. trust me you will thank me later. this is FUCKING KEY 4 - completely master ethics AGAIN. ethics will save you. if you're on the border, ethics will save you. don't be fooled by ethics questions on schweser.. i was getting 90% and up on schweser ethics but got 56% on the ethics portion of my first CFA sample exam. the CFA institute wants you to learn ethichs THEIR way.. so do it. you will thank yourself for it later.

PM me if there's other questions!

To what depth do you need to know Stats and Probabilities? I'm having a hard time believing I'll be called on to for example use Bayes' formula or a covariance table to calculate an expected return, or to do too much in the way of advanced permutation/counting etc. The CFAI material on probability suuuuuuuuucks.

if you like it then you shoulda put a banana on it
 
frgna:
wannabeahfdude:
Hey guys,

I took level 1 in June 2012 and passed with >70% on most parts (got the middle section on alt inv and quant). It was pretty brutal because my preparation wasn't the best, but I think you can all learn from my mistakes.

I started studying in mid march but didn't really get into it until mid april. I used a combination of the CFA curriculum and the Schweser materials.

If I could go back again, this is exactly how I would study for level 1 (keep in mind I did do SOME of these things, but not all): 1 - completely master all the areas with the greatest weightings (ethics, quant, econ, fr&a, fixed income, equities) 2 - do NOT rely on schweser too much. schweser is great for learning the concepts but NOT for getting the questions right. schweser questions are worded in a very clear and easy to understand way.. the exam is NOT like this. the questions in the CFA curriculum and sample exams is a lot closer to the real thing. i know the CFA curriculum is a lot of info.. i didn't have time to read it all and while i don't recommend that, i do strongly recommend going through all the sample questions 3 - completely master the CFA sample exams. sleep with these, post them on your forehead, whatever it takes.. trust me you will thank me later. this is FUCKING KEY 4 - completely master ethics AGAIN. ethics will save you. if you're on the border, ethics will save you. don't be fooled by ethics questions on schweser.. i was getting 90% and up on schweser ethics but got 56% on the ethics portion of my first CFA sample exam. the CFA institute wants you to learn ethichs THEIR way.. so do it. you will thank yourself for it later.

PM me if there's other questions!

To what depth do you need to know Stats and Probabilities? I'm having a hard time believing I'll be called on to for example use Bayes' formula or a covariance table to calculate an expected return, or to do too much in the way of advanced permutation/counting etc. The CFAI material on probability suuuuuuuuucks.

Believe it or not... you probably will get asked a really random quant question or two. You will NOT get any tables on the exams.. you are expected to know the confidence intervals (1.65, 1.96, etc.). For the really random questions I had, I decided the smartest thing to do was to not waste any time on them and to just guess and move on.

When you say the CFAI material on quant sucks, in what way does it suck? Is it too long, too detailed, too vague?

 

Oh okay. I completely missed the first sentence in the question lol... Part 1 makes perfect sense and is still pretty simple but a little trickier. You would most likely never see this on schweser. I understand what's going on in part 2, too, but it's difficult for me to explain.

I'll attempt to explain the intuitiveness or logic of the answer if you aren't there yet. If you already understand this part, sorry for wasting your time. Essentially, as the price decreases, the likelihood of the orders being filled increases. If the limit orders were closer together ($10 and $9.99) the probabilities would be closer together (.35 and .34) then the probability of order 2 being filled, given that order 1 was filled would be much higher (97%), for example. I think that after seeing this problem here, if I faced it on the exam, I would apply this same logic (0.25/0.35) to get the answer. Again, sorry if this was already obvious to you.

 
wannabeahfdude:
Oh okay. I completely missed the first sentence in the question lol... Part 1 makes perfect sense and is still pretty simple but a little trickier. You would most likely never see this on schweser. I understand what's going on in part 2, too, but it's difficult for me to explain.

I'll attempt to explain the intuitiveness or logic of the answer if you aren't there yet. If you already understand this part, sorry for wasting your time. Essentially, as the price decreases, the likelihood of the orders being filled increases. If the limit orders were closer together ($10 and $9.99) the probabilities would be closer together (.35 and .34) then the probability of order 2 being filled, given that order 1 was filled would be much higher (97%), for example. I think that after seeing this problem here, if I faced it on the exam, I would apply this same logic (0.25/0.35) to get the answer. Again, sorry if this was already obvious to you.

That is super helpful and makes way more sense to me than their explanations, wasn't obvious to me until you explained it - that's good to know about the difficulty levels, I think it's just going to be a matter of doing lots and lots of practice problems and messing up a bit.

Thanks!

if you like it then you shoulda put a banana on it
 

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