I’m through the first two SS of FSA, and I’ve read through Quant but did not understand it very well, so there will have to be time to go through it again.
hey i’m about 2 days away from finishing book 1 with good notes for all readings thus far. i’m at sampling and distributions. I’ll be taking a mini trip to new york for the holiday weekend. My plan is to review my notes and take the end of section mini quizzes on the plane rides to and fro. i hope i won’t be far behind everyone else as I had just started studying on January 4th. So about 2 weeks to finish a book isn’t too long is it? i’m going to read through economics then spend as much time as i can on FSA. what’s everyone else’s schedule like?
Finished SS1 and SS2. For SS2, I actually read CFA and Schwester notes both. My background is IT and am having a tough time retaining the quant concepts. I get the math part when I read it… but seem to forget everything when I get to actually solving the problems at the end of SS. Anybody having issues like me : ( Once question I have: Do we really need to commit to memory all those formulas. There is way to many of them.
I started Jan 8 and just finished reading through book 1. I’m going to spend the weekened doing problems. I recommend going through Schweser and using the CFAI books just for reference. It’s WAY too detailed…I think it’s basically for people who have no background in any of the material and need to start from square one. It’s actually not that difficult to memorize all the formulas as they are slight variations of the same formula.
yes we need to memorise formulas…i know its very annoying…i am weak at it myself
I’m reading the CFA textbooks to start with, but I’ll move to Schweser when I’ve read them all through once. It took me all of december to read the Equity and Fixed Income book (I wanted to read something with actual finance to start). However between January 2nd- through to today, January 20th, I’ve read all of Ethics, and Quants, and I only have three readings to go in Economics. It’s my goal to finish all of the texts by March 1, so that I can read through Schweser and really crack down on learning the calculations. Right now I just want to understand the theory and processes (going well so far), rather than memorizing the things I’ll just need to re-memorize later.
I have finished Ethics, Quants, Fixed Income, Derivatives. Next should be equity. My main problem is that unlike most people, I can’t do the marathon after marathon nearer to the exam–I have a full time job that requires me to put in around 10-11 hours almost every day of the week–so weekends are pretty much my only chance. I have also realized a few things after 2 months of learning that I wrote down here: http://blog.5m10y.com/2009/01/18/cfa-learning-strategies-for-old-people/ Because of the reasons I listed there, I have started doing QBank now. Material difficulty is basically no problem. The amount, and retaining them, are the main challenge.
Hi all… I started on Jan. 5 Currently have read Ethics in the Schweser books and am almost done with the Quant stuff (and this all of book 1). My studying has been inefficient to say the least… distracted by computer, tv, and friends. I plan to spend the rest of this week going through Book 1 a second time and start in on Book 2 Economics on Monday. I haven’t read the Standards of Practice Handbook though, but I’ve heard it’s recommended to study that and Ethics at the very end, so I will go back and review all that again during my final week cram session. I’m feeling decent because I majored in Economics, but also took a lot of accounting and finance, but I’m still hoping to put in a more efficient ~15 hours a week starting now.
BigTicket Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi all… > > I started on Jan. 5 > > Currently have read Ethics in the Schweser books > and am almost done with the Quant stuff (and this > all of book 1). My studying has been inefficient > to say the least… distracted by computer, tv, > and friends. I plan to spend the rest of this > week going through Book 1 a second time and start > in on Book 2 Economics on Monday. > > I haven’t read the Standards of Practice Handbook > though, but I’ve heard it’s recommended to study > that and Ethics at the very end, so I will go back > and review all that again during my final week > cram session. > > I’m feeling decent because I majored in Economics, > but also took a lot of accounting and finance, but > I’m still hoping to put in a more efficient ~15 > hours a week starting now. Standard of Practice Handbook IS what you have already read on Ethics in the CFAI Institute, so there you go!
rayllionaire Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have finished Ethics, Quants, Fixed Income, > Derivatives. Next should be equity. > > My main problem is that unlike most people, I > can’t do the marathon after marathon nearer to the > exam–I have a full time job that requires me to > put in around 10-11 hours almost every day of the > week–so weekends are pretty much my only chance. > > > I have also realized a few things after 2 months > of learning that I wrote down here: > http://blog.5m10y.com/2009/01/18/cfa-learning-stra > tegies-for-old-people/ > > Because of the reasons I listed there, I have > started doing QBank now. Material difficulty is > basically no problem. The amount, and retaining > them, are the main challenge. For someone working 11 hrs/day , you seem studying pretty fast? R u in the finance industry? Did you have time to do all the questions in the CFA book after each reading?
Hey Michael, I don’t have a finance background, although my current work makes me pretty knowledgeable about derivatives–which sadly makes up a very small part of the exam! No, I haven’t done the questions in the CFA book after each reading. I will do those nearer to the exam.
Just to add to the conversation, I have finished Ethics and the first Quant study session (SS 2). I’m half way through SS 3 and hope to have the readings done by tomorrow. I will use this weekend to do an overall review of both Quant study sessions and get started on Economics. I’m using the Schweser books and feel pretty good about how much I am retaining/understanding the concepts and formulas. I’m hoping to do all 3 Econ study sessions in 2 weeks so that I can get a little ahead of pace. Ideally I would like to be done with the readings by tax day (April 15th) which would give me 7 weeks of review, but I’m anticipating it taking to the end of April to finish reading, which would still give me 5 weeks of review.
Well guys, 4 months to go now till exam. I have covered around half of the readings, but didn’t start ethics, FSA so far. I will be having 1 month of holidays as from mid february and I hope this will be very helpful . The thing is that I’m reading from CFA books, stalla’s SG and writing down my own notes, but I’m feeling so slow. Moreover, I’m doing the questions at the end of each chapter in the CFA books but didn’t start yet those of stalla PM. However, I feel I forget everything after a few weeks as there are so many points to remember. Would like to know if you are having the same problem? I’m starting to get discouraged, putting so much effort and forgetting the stuffs!!!
sumz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > yes we need to memorise formulas…i know its very > annoying…i am weak at it myself When I took the exam in Dec., it wasn’t so much testing of a memorization of formula’s, but more of an understanding of them. What do I know though, I failed… I just know that this time I’m putting more emphasis on the application of the formulas than memorizing how to value zero-coupon bonds via bootstrapping without a full understanding of what I was doing.
You just made me realize that now I have forgotten what bootstrapping was about. I just finished reading this barely weeks ago. Darn it! :-S
I’m still on pace, as I’ve read the first, second, third, and fifth CFA texts. I’m mostly through FSA, so then it’s just corporate finance and derivatives. Did anyone else feel that SS9 was absolutely brutal? I was moving along at a pretty decent pace, but then I started reading about long term assets and income tax… wow. I don’t know if the CFA texts are just badly worded in this case, but damn, this stuff is awful. Horribly boring and complicated from where I was sitting. I’m hopeful that when I go through Schweser it’ll make a lot more sense or I’m really going to have to buckle down on that part. Long term liabilities was easy enough though at least.