I went to one of the 3-day Schweser review workshops and the teacher for the 3 days was BJ Tolia, the Level 2 content manager.
These were his best estimates (key word estimates) for the exam. I asked him how comfortable he was with these and all he said was that he’s been doing this for 17 years.
Ethics 10%
Quant 5%
Econ 5%
FRA 20%
Corp 10%
Eq 15%
FI 10%
Derivatives 10%
Alts 5%
PM 10%
Reasonable enough.
I do not know of he must estimate his weights.
Because, on the CFA website, for example FRA is 15-20% (as last year). But this year, two topics have been removed: - Inventories - Long-lived assets
It’s funny because I asked him about that when he gave us his estimates. He said that the Inventory/LLA sections weren’t removed from the entire curriculum (all 3 levels) but shifted down to level 1, which leaves 4 distinct sections that were very item set worthy by themselves - intercorporate, pensions, multinationals and quality of financials. That and his 17 years comment gives me some comfort that he’s close if not spot on.
CFAI loves FRA 
and they can’t test that in Level III
I know for a fact econ has come up two item sets for 2 years in a row, and when I took this exam last year for the first time i was also assured by the instructor that econ would only be 5%. Bottom line is not to trust any of these estimates, everything is fair on game day!
PS. A good way to check is to go through the previous results threads. And look at peoples scoring matricies, you can deduce from that how many item sets came up per topic.
I’d be surprised if we didn’t see 20% (4 item sets) for equity, IMO.
As a band 10 retaker, you are 100% right and the one difference between 2016 and what I posted was the one less Econ item set which was added to PM for a total of 2. I also know for a fact that in 2015 there was 1 Econ item set and 4 Equity item sets. Out of PM, Equity, and Econ - PM is the only topic that has had content added in the last two years. They’ve actually added to it twice over the last two years. Equity has had a little removed and Econ has stayed mostly (if not all) the same. My money’s on 1 Econ item set and 2 PM sets. Either way, I guess we’ll all know this time next week.
Hope its more than 15% equities. Thats my best subject area.
Only 10% for FI? What gives… CFAI lists FI as 10-20%… if it ends up being 10, that will be bad for me.
Please take away PM.
There is overlap between Fixed Income and Derivatives so just 10% for fixed income might be right. However, don’t be surprised if Fixed Income jumps up to 15% this year
I’d rather they take 5 away from derivatives and give it to equity … but I’m sure I won’t be that lucky.
screw that! The more derivatives there are the BETTER!!
How was the weight last year? how was FI, Der and Ethics?
I think I walked into the exam at about 181 pounds and probably 15% body fat since I quit working out from march to June.
Ha ha