Apologies for this very long post.Also apologies for my ignorence here. tried searchn for similar post to answer my question but cudnt find one. Apologies for this post coz its not the common type that 1 wud find on here. Also, pls dnt get me wrong im not looking for investment advice or a formula, jus some direction. Firstly i am involved in the funding of commercial and residential real estate for a commercial bank. Real estate has been my passion and been investing in it for last 5 to 6 yrs on a personal level. Real estate probably makes up 94% of my portfolio. My share portfolio is thus very tiny. So apart from enrolling in CFA program for career development, the intention was also to enhance my skills to become more proficient in building up a substantial share portfolio so I can retire or at least become financially free by age 40. My issue is that i am comfortable assessing real estate deals from start to finish and i manage my own portfolio. I choose properties closer to home because they easier to manage and I know wat sort of rentals and yields i can expect in most towns within our Province. But as u all know real estate took a huge smack during recession and the lack of liquidity does not help. Hav not lost money per se but just cant sell rite now. I am ok with DCF analysis, share valuation as we did in L1. My issue is formulating a system for industry analysis leading into company and share analysis. As an example if i find an income producing property i make some calls to agents in the area, drive around and ask people wat the going rentals are in the area and then use the info to determine the intrinsic value of the house based on expected income. I do this daily in my job as well so that makes it easier for me. I hav the systems and hav developed a tool on Excel to help me. Shares is a whole different story. I dnt know where to start looking. So many sectors to choose from, so many companies within the sectors as wel. Im trying to employ the Top-down approach to select the companies that i should pay more attention to and analyse further but stil stuck at the industry level. Wudve helped if i was working in a brokerage firm for the practical application but i dnt. In a brokerage firm u find analyst that only follow the Retail sector for example. But as a private do it urself investor u nd to follow all sectors to know where to place ur money. Wat im after in this post is some guidence in understanding how a brokerage selects the industries to invest in. Wats the starting point? Analysing past returns and then short listing only those industries expected to prosper or jus analysing each and every industry on the stock market and finding the best companies in each industry? Do the brokerage houses jus use an excel based financial model to conduct the financial and quantitative analyses? If so, wat can we as private investors use to do the same job without being a computer boffin and building models from scratch. I jus dnt wana spend 5 months doing manual research. Thats jus crazy. Im hoping L2 wil assist me as wel since its suppose to focus on share selection but in the meantime i nd to invest. Been trading in ETFs lately so my cash doesnt stand idle. But keen on developing a system that i can follow in selecting the companies that i should short list to assess further. So if anyone can share some insight on a structure that they follow with personal trades it wil be much appreciated. One thing this post wil highlight is that i am battling to practically apply what i hav learned thus far in the CFA program. Apologies again for this LONG post.