I was skimming through the LOS for SS on Derivs and noticed all the previous “calculate Forwards, FRAs, options, etc given the formula” are this year phrased “calculate X Y Z” without the phrase “given the formula”. Is this for real? There was a ton of theory i remember last yr so I was wondering if I should spin my wheels memorizing the derivs formulas all over again or just stick to theory and choose a few deriv formulas to memorize.
i was under the impression that we have to know the formulae!!
Even last year I didn’t skip knowing the derivative formulas. There are often many different versions of the formula with different sub/superscript notations and if you don’t recognize it than you are still SOL. If it is a calculation, know the formula…they didn’t state “calculate P/E Franchise Value” in the LOS (or whatever the it was), but they had a question in the asset valuation section that required you to do just that (and they didn’t provide the formula)…easy points if you knew the formula; sadly many did not. Derivatives seems to be a difficult subject for many 1st time LIIers to grasp, but if you learn the formulas there are several easy points (things like valuing/pricing an FRA is straight forward once you’ve done it several times and they love asking it…maybe not in real life, but in CFA world).