After a long pause of 6 years, I have decided to initiate Level 2. After passing Level 1, I got married and my motivation to write exam just faded completely. Recently, I got Canadian immigration and planned to move permanently after 2 years. I understand cut throat competition in Canada in the field of Investment and Finance due to limited jobs and excess supply of CFA. Many of you might advise me not to opt for CFA now as i crossed 43 years of age but I am committed to pass to survive in Canada for sake of my family.
Please let me know best study notes and also i want to know from experience of mature students.
Congratulations! I’m 43 too. It’s never too late to update and retool. I’m from the U.S. and I’m using the CFA to enhance my marketing for my business. One hnw business client will more than pay for the financial and time costs involved. I guess you can say my NPV for this project is positive and the irr exceeds my hurdle rate significantly. lol! Nerdy finance joke. For example I have an real estate investor prospect who is affluent with $2M in investable assets. That’s a potential revenue of $25k in planning fees and investment fees. I didn’t count insurance commissions and any executive comp and/or benefits plans for employees. That’s recurring revenue of $20k and $1500 per project (unknown number of projects) for project analysis he wants me to do regularly. If I can attract more clients like him away from the plain & common retirement plan focused advisors because of my CFA, I win. I can compete against the CPAs for strategic business consulting too. Actually one retirement plan transfer will cover the financial costs. I actually need around 7 affluent clients with 20k in total fees each if I calculate 900 hours at my billing rate. Or, I suppose, keep that guy happy for 7’ish years. I say all of that to say, your idea is a great idea. There are many opportunities if you keep an open mind. The market will never become saturated with innovators.
I haven’t got to lvl2 so I can’t answer your main question. I’m just curious about the answers as I plan my lvl2 studies starting August 2019 after vacation in July. I’m a financial planner, I tend to plan things far out into the future :).
Oh, I have a 4yr old and a 6 month old competing for my time so I do most of my studies late night 11pm-1am and at work. I just started drilling questions on the Kaplan app on my phone. I have the Wiley app too for their q-bank. For lvl 1 I’m reading Kaplan and using the curriculum for deeper understanding on trouble spots. IFT videos and Mark Meldrum videos as a backup if I’m still confused. Mark suggests drilling questions before re-reading or video’s. I have Kaplan and Wiley q-bank. then there’s the CFAI q-bank and mocks. I have Kaplan and Wiley mocks too. I’m following the CFAI recommended 19 week pace and using Mark Meldrum’s spreadsheet to track progress. Kaplan has a tracker I’m using by default as I do the readings, quizzes, check-ups, etc. I should have 6-8 week at the end to just do mocks and questions the last few weeks I’ll do mostly CFAI questions and Mocks.