Hi guys, I only used Schweser books to get through L1 in Dec but having been sent CFAI books for “free” am trying to decide on optimal strategy for revision using best/most helpful sections from both resources. I have yet to start studying so I will allow myself one more day of procrastination to develop a strategy to tackle this baby. Looking for pointers from people who are using Schweser+CFAI books on which of the two they would use for each of the major topics. I realise CFAI books are very wordy and sometimes over-elaborate but are they much better than Schweser in explaining certain topics?? I gather for a topic like ethics it makes sense to use CFAI handbook as very similar examples are often used in the exam. Thanks and good luck guys
cfa books have me like a cat chasing its tail… schweser’s is so much easier, and then you have to take schweser’s advice and your own feel for where you want to dig deeper. i think there are alot of subjects that are pretty straight-forward (dividend discount models come to mind)… and as i said, there are areas that are too complicated and involved in CFA and will serve to confuse/frustrate (if you are highly interested in a few of the subjects, i would circle back on your own time after the exam)
At this point I would strongly recommend Schweser only. There is only 3 months and which is not enough time in my opinion to sort the fluff from substance in the CFAI texts.
a guy at financial rounds blog spot DOT com has written “how to pass CFA in 50 days”, and he’s talking about level 2… and his strategy is somewhat involved and it’s basically learn the basics in every single area. huge portion of the exam is low-hanging fruit, but if you know nothing about franchise value PE then you might miss 5 questions that you could have learned in half an hour. if you know the basics and then there’s one question that gets very complex, if you know the subject basics, you should have a decent chance at guessing… his view and my view are the same. reading and absorbing the CFA to a high level was just getting me hopelessly confused. i don’t think the level that they teach at is testable unless you’re able to bring in tons of notes (i.e. more an exam where the basic info is given but you have to apply it to complex situations). anyhow, i’m going wild on schweser now and it does get pretty detailed on calculations itself, but it seems to omit all the obscure conditions that made something less or more relevent.
westbruin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > a guy at financial rounds blog spot DOT com has > written “how to pass CFA in 50 days”, and he’s > talking about level 2… FYI: the url for the financialrounds post is http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-pass-cfa-in-50-days.html He’s mostly repackaging a previous AF post, but he has a few additional points that are worth reading. The previous AF post is at http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,617060 Enough futzing around - back to studying. My two little yard apes expect me to take in a movie with them this afternoon, and I have FSA to review.
Timing on this (mostly) repost could not be better for me. I’ve been trying to use CFAI materials much more than I did last year, when I got top scores in LI using almost only Schweser. Equity valuation readings in CFAI particularly have me bogged down for 10 days now, with only 240 pages read and no clear progress. I’m going back to streamlined Schweser notes with occasional digging into CFAI. I’ve got to make more progress. Work has been killing me (I run 20 billion in fixed income funds, and needless to say the credit markets are abysmal right now), and my two year old is more demanding than ever. I need quicker learning and this has inspired me to seek it.
welcome to team schweser. i’m trying to do all of the back of the book CFAI questions so I don’t feel like I’m missing much. i just don’t right now have the time either or energy to read the full texts. we’ll see if in the end it does me in. i think if anything does me in, it’ll be lack of studying, not studying schweser vs cfai texts.