How Difficult is FRA? Any advice on how to go about studying it?

Specially Readings 19-21

It’s hard.

Elan Videos is my suggestion. You can buy them individually and they really help.

How does the level of difficulty in accounting compare with the currency exchange reading from econ

Rather if in term of difficult with D as lowest and A as highest

I felt

Correlation / Regression was C

M. Regression was B

Time series was B+

Currency Exchange was A

Econ growth was B to B+

Econ regulation was C+

How do the reading in other topics especially FRA compare according to my scale?

Pierre,

I didn’t really find the ccy xchange Econ section to be that difficult. Have you got Schweser? They did a pretty good job of explaining it. I’m reaching for the Elan videos on Quant though (few parts of Regression, M Regression, and Time Series).

FRA is a different kind of difficulty. Quant is about either getting it or not getting it, there’s a light bulb moment that happens when it clicks. With FRA, there’s all this crap you need to remember with Temporal vs. Current Rate method and how it impacts income statement, balance sheet, IFRS vs GAAP, etc. Even if you get it, there’s still a heap of shit you need to memorise. Also, there’s so much knowledge you need to bring together in order to solve one question, vs. Quant and Econ calcs that seems more direct (i.e. 1 piece of knowledge solves 1 question sort of thing). Worse still, it’s boring. Quant at least is really interesting once you get it.

btw - I struggled with Econ regulation. They were just words with no meaning. This was out of Schweser though, maybe I should check out CFAI text on this.

Agree with clevercfa that currency exchange rates wasn’t so bad. However, growth theories were pretty difficult for me to understand. Regulation was just a piece of crap.

BTW clevercfa, I thought the free Elan QM videos were fantastic. QM made so much more sense after watching those.

i will be starting QM soon. Can we downloadELAN QT videos ?

good news is that these are free!

well that very good. Heard Qt wa tough. Will watch elan video in addition to Arif video

just finished intercorporate investments - what a long ass reading

i think its also the longest reading in cfa l2

Wait till you get to Fixed Income and Derivatives. LOL.

Edit: If I had to choose, I’d say that freaking Econ reading on FX is the crappiest. Dull material (except FX swaps) and nothing exciting. Not even sure how Economists live with themselves. That shit can never be applied and can never be explained. Parity relations can suck it.

[/end venting]

The FRA is not ‘conceptually’ difficult, but there are a lot of ‘arbitrary memorizations’ that you need to know.

I read it over a while ago, but only remember about 10% of it right now.

dont you think the exam questions testing us on IFRS/GAAP are bullshit? I mean the differences will be gone in the next few years, making up exam questions that test our knowledge of arbitrary rules from IFRS/GAAP is stupid. Testmakers trying to beat a soon to be dead horse?

anyone got a link for these free QM videos, i could do with them!

plz explain impairment of avaialble for sale securities

"For available-for-sale securities that have become impaired, the cumulative loss that had been recognized in other comprehensive income is reclassified from equity to profit or loss as a reclassification adjustment. The amount of the cumulative loss to be reclassified is the difference between acquisition cost (net of any principal repayment and amortization) and current fair value, less any impairment loss that has previously been recognized in profit or loss.???

derivatives sucks…I’m doing that right now. I actually think it tougher than FRA…once I mastered the temporal/current stuff and all of the rules it’s not bad. Derivatives on the other hand I had no experience with so its taking me a bit more time to catch up