Neglecting certain topics

Hey folks,

Do you think pretty much neglecting only a couple dead-end topics two wouldn’t be as bad seeing they’re both very minor portions?Is anyone else simply spending maybe 5% of their time on one or two extremely difficult topics, and spending the other 95% of their time on topics in which they’re stronger? For example, the Economics FX chapter and the Derivatives Pricing/Valuation chapter are absolute dead-ends for me so I am literally spending infinitesimal time on them…

Thanks everyone!

It is ok to leave a minor chapter from a major subject, where institute may have enought testable material, not an ideal.thing to do, but a gamble worth taking. But the subjects you r talking about, already have only 3 chapter each and you are sure to.get ques from these chapters, so not a wise thing to do. My suggestion would be to purchase mark videos for these two subjects and view them and am sure you will get them in your head. This guy had made these subjects look relatively easy. Both subjects were quite difficult for me too, but after watching his videos, find them a little easy. My 2 cents, hope this helps.

Thank you Sagacious, will do

+1. Don’t try to learn those topics from the curriculum. That thing is a mess and the author should be jailed for the torture that he has caused for so many people. The concepts are relatively straight-forward and easy to learn if you put in the effort. Mark Meldrum’s videos are very helpful.

I am finding derivatives strategies really hard. I tried going through the material and I thought I had understood it but now I feel totally blank. Memorizing the formulas is prob not going to work either. I have a lot of material to cover and I don’t know if spending time at this stage on derivative strategies is worth it.

Taycfa,

In my experience (and I am seeing that Derivative Strategies is much easier then Pricing/Valuation of Forwards) for the Strategies chapter - you only have to focus on two things:

  1. When the strategies are useful (e.g. protective puts are good when a price decline could be possible) 2. What the formulas for max loss, max gain, breakeven, etc etc etc… are. That’s it.

Don’t forget, the derivative chapter will have only a maximum of two vignettes on the exam.

Oh ok. I will try to give it a shot again. Thanks!