Hi all,
I thought it would be a good idea for us to post our progress every few weeks or so to keep each other on track and motivated.
Personally I have recently just picked up my books. I am done with QM and Ethics and now moving into Econ. I’ve been warned that Econ is a real pain this year. Has anyone gone through it already? Any thoughts/comments?
Thanks and good luck to all!
I started with Econ. Now struggling with Portfolio Management. As I’m quite familiar with all math related topics I decided to divide the CFAI books (yes, I’ve decided to go through them) in a simple way, by turns: familiar with (Econ, Portoflio) - not familiar with (for instance: accounting, ethics) - familiar with - not familiar with -… and so on. I hope I won’t get bored, and still be motivated.
I’m going through the program normally, I started with ethics, QM, eco, and I’m now beginning FSA, which is really boring so far. Economics is not hard, but my opinion is that it’s important to spend some time understanding the cause-effect relationships.
I brought the first book with me on vacation and finished reading Ethics and did the EOC questions.
i have started with FRA and still 4 readings left… holiday season was really slow, havent studied a word… but i hope i will be on track now…
Read the CFAI books…now working on Schwesser while taking notes. Hopefully I will be done with the notes by middle of Feb and actually review them
Hello everyone! I have since ordered my study notes and will begin studying on the 9th. It seems I am already behind relative to everyone else on this forum. 
I have decided to split my study time accordingly to the assigned weights to each section. For example, since Ethics is 15% of the exam, assuming I study a total of 250 hours, 38 hours will be assigned for Ethics. Assuming I study 2 hours/day 6x per week, that is the equivalent of 19 days. Is anybody taking this approach as well? If not, would you mind sharing your plan in how you allocate your time?
I wouldn’t do that since the weight on the exam is not necessarily representative of how difficult the material is or how much reading there is. I finished ethics in 6 days and have a good grasp on it, but am expecting to spend a lot more time on other subjects that have long readings.
Finished with Equity, FI, Derivatives & Alts. Just started FRA.
My journey has been a mixed bag so far. I have completed the first readings of the following topics - Corporate Finance (Schweser) Financial Reporting & Analysis (Schweser) Ethics (CFA Institute) Quantitative Methods (Mix of Schweser and CFAI) Portfolio Management (Mix of Schweser and CFAI) Derivatives (CFAI - yet to finish) So, a lot remainining, plus revisions plus practice exams. Not enough time.
I just picked my study plan. Just finished the first reading of ethics Notes and doing concept check and Qbank quizzes. Planning to go through Quant by the end of the week. Total study hours done so far: 6. Plan to do at least 300 by May. Starting MSF program next week, we’ll see how the time management will work. Anyone else doing masters in parallel? BTW: Bartender, thanks for starting this topic. I already feel motivated…
Hello everyone, I just finished Volume 1 (Ethics & QM) and started Economics. Hope to have enough time until end of May. I have only the CFA books, no other additional material. Usefull topic…I also feel more motivated. Good luck everyone.
I’ve been studying pretty much exclusively with Schweser notes. Only referred to CFAI material when I got stuck, though didn’t find it of much help. Summary of my studies so far. Started studying in October and have done topics so far in this order. Ethics: read through Schweser only, just skimmed it though and planning on reading CFAI text in May. Quant: all relatively straightforward material but took me a while to get through this section. Only struggled a bit with understanding Hypothesis testing. What’s helpful with this section is that a lot of problem in other sections (i.e. Corp Fin, Eqt, etc) use what you learn in this section, so going through other section you review this material. FRA: took me quite a while to get through this as well. Seems straightforward when I was just reading it, but then when I actually had to answer questions I realized I didn’t know the material. Also, having to know the differences between USGAAP and IFRS, my god, what a pain, my brain isn’t good at memorizing this sort of stuff. Planning on spending probably the same amount of time reabsorbing/re-reading this material again. Econ: relatively straightforward. If you did Micro/Macro econ in college, this is mostly just a review. I struggled a bit in the Macro section (still fuzzy on IS/LM curves). This section also seemed to pass slowly. Corp Finance: ok, this is where I just breazed through the material. I knocked off this topic in about a week with the notes, really straightforward. Heard this is meant to be an easy point scoring section. Equity: also just breezed past this section, just seemed to me like reading a book, just now finishing the last section on Equity valuation which is probably the hardest. So, topics left to read in this order: Portfolio Mgmt - Looks short but with some parts potentially complicated requiring a lot of time to absorb. Fixed Income - looks a little intimidating, especially part on valuations at the end. Seems interesting though. Derivatives - I work in this area, so should be easy, otherwise I would think this would be quite a complicated section for people new products like options. Alternative Investments - looks pretty easy. After I finished the first readings, I plan on going through light reviews of each section and using QBank to test myself, creating flashcards along the way (which I should really have been doing but haven’t). And then repeat the above until May arrives and then start doing practice exams. Ok, back to work now. Good luck everyone.
good to have some company here
I am going to start studying Jan.13.
Weirdly, did anyone enjoy reading economics beside me? I despise Financial Reporting btw.
I enjoyed economics…absolutely hate Quant. Anyone using the MP3 download?
I’m so much better at the math sections than the sections that just require memorization… I haven’t gotten to it yet, but I’ve heard FRA is going to be the hardest section.
I started reading CFAI about 3 months ago. I’ve read in order and I’m up to Vol. 5 “Equity and Fixed Income” - 170 pages in. Plan to get done with all the readings by the end of January and then it’s all review. I feel I have a good grasp on most of the concepts and I’ve taken every Practice Question section, mostly getting around 80%. On a couple readings though (one in Econ and one in FRA) I got about 55%-60%. There was one reading in particular in FRA that was not well written in my opinion. Overall, I’m enjoying the readings especially Vol. 4 and Vol. 5 (so far).
after, my first thorough read, i thought econs was the most boring and most difficult section. however, i changed my mind after working through the EOC questions and some qns from 2011 mock exams. now i like econs.