For Level II I thought the most difficult parts were Time Series Analysis, a few Fixed Income readings, some SWAP calculations and Pension accounting (pensions weren’t really difficult, I just fell asleep every time I started studying it until last week when I forced myself to learn it).
For Level III I dont find anything really difficult after I have spent some time just flipping pages. It feels more like stuff that is quite easy to learn if you just give it some time. Am I wrong?
L3 is deceptively easy. The hardest part is the testing format: AM written
Although if I had to pick one, I’d say commodities, only because I think the CFAI did a poor job explaining it. The Scheweser books did a much better job
It was not explained at all by CFAI - it was taken as an excerpt from a textbook. I have the one - it is really terrible to read and get it right. There is a lot of more friendly readable books on derivatives in the market.
The most humble part of the curriculum i believe is Performance Evaluation and GIPS. We were lucky enough not to be tested widely on the topics.
I liked GIPS. In fact I was pretty surprised how smoothly it went for me after I struggled so heavily with soft dollars and ROS in level II… But macro performance attribution required really a bit of effort to comprehend - I needed to intensively produce computations on my own to arrive at CFAI’s figures…
Found orienting from L2 to L3 very difficult. L3 requires a different frame of mind, I felt so. Once I got into the groove didn’t find much problem. Smooth sailing. Happy to see others struggled with ‘pencil’ so I am not alone. I missed not having FSA in L3 GIPS somehow pisses everyone off isn’t it.
hardest part about level 3 was practicing two types of tests. Essay and Mulitple choice AM/PM. The key to passing is crushing the PM section and holding your own on the essays, i.e. greater than 70 on 2 or 3 sections.
corporate governance… and agree about behavioral finance but having multiple frameworks with different terminologies was hard to keep track of, and annoying. also found the international investing section to be a little annoying but I recognize it’s important and actually like it. PENCILS, arghhhhhhhhhhhhh