Really, a big one on a concentrated asset? Maybe one question out of a series on a normal IPS. If there is something on insurance it will probably be more about immunization than anything. Really? A residence question? Any options questions will be a single question or two.
My guesses are… 1) Individula IPS with behavioral biases, maybe a trusut/tax question 2) Pension IPS w/ risk tolerance, immunization, nominal, real bonds vs equities, etc… other questions I bet will be on there: yardini model vs fed model, Grinold-Kroner, Singer-Terhar, a couple currency hedging questions and PPP, roll yield, few questions about growth vs value, maybe a bond indexing question or two, monte carlo and black literman vs MVO, dollar duration rebalancing ratio, adjusting beta and duration with futures. Oh and the effective rate on a loan with an IR call, that always seems to be a popular one. And I bet one on calculating Implementation Shortfall… haven’t seen that one come up recently.
1- ips and needing to calculate i through pv, fv, n and pmt.
2- pension instit hardcore case.
3- concentrated position mixed with biases (cognitive emotional)- + tax loss harvesting
4- fed/yardini/10 year mov avg , equity v or tobin q
5- praying for microattribution or macro attribution case.
6- id love a rebalancing immunization case / calculating cushion etc…
7- converting equity to cash or vv
8- PLZ A CORNER PORTFOLIO CASE
9- RV gift / bequest, source - residence, and calculating pv of spending
10- i wouldn’t mind a sector rotation/yield pick up/ yield curve enhancement/ structure trade case.
i dont think we’ll have currency case in the morning session as it appears to be good material for a whole vignette in the afternoon. If we get one then God help us =) …
as for pm, i definitely expect some equity style case, effective interest rates, options, commodities, hurdle rates … anything that makes our lives living hell !
Not much real use in this exercise, as confidence intervals have to be pretty wide (FML for even saying that), but it’s fun…aside from the IPS (watch for a concentrated position and what options the investor has/what is best given the circumstances and give one or two reasons), thinking:
full-on implementation shortfall (on the sale side)
Alternative investments (sorry OP)
something with a bank - whether IPS-related or fx hedging a loan w/ options
How real do you think the theory that CFAI tries to vary topic questions is? Today I found myself reviewing 2013 AM about the tradeoffs of emerging market index constructions… then I started thinking, this is such a specific topic, that there is NO way they test this again the very next year. Maybe as an item set question… maybeeee.
Same thing with the community property vs forced heirship question.
Be interesting to see if you took like the last 10 years of tests and tried to identify trends.
Probably not worth the effort (especially w/ a week to go!)… but still.