Should I do equity valuation next or do you need knowledge from the quant section?

CFA Level II
#1

I haven’t done as much work on the CFA material as I would have liked, but I’m trying to really get into it now. I know the portfolio management section very well and I also spent a lot of time on the FA section, but I still don’t know it as well as I’d like. I was thinking of moving on to the equity valuation part, since its the largest % of the exam. However, I was concerned that it might expect you to know some of the concepts from earlier sections. For example, in the portfolio Mgt I didn’t know what a “first order autoregressive process” is, but its not a big part of the material. What do you think?

#2

Is there some additional information I need to provide to get a response?

#3

For both Level 1 and Level 2 I have decided to go through beginning to end without skipping books. The material seems to flow better doing it that way. If you are running into material in PM that they expected you to have already learned in Quant, that should probably be an indication that they want you to go in order (first order AR models are covered in Quant). It’s safer that way and personally I don’t really see any reason to skip around. You have to learn it all eventually anyways.

#4

It shouldnt matter…you have to do them both anyway… I however, will leave the highly important items until the end, so it is more fresh in my mind

#5

For the record, I’m talking about a first run through. Clearly when it is closer to exam time you want to focus on weak areas and areas with more questions on the exam.

#6

I started with FSA because that was my weakest area on level 1. I did the PM section next because it directly relates to what I’m doing at work. Aside from a few sentences in how a formula was derived I knew everything I needed for PM. With level 1 I did go from beginning to end, but I thought with level 2 I could start with the more important ones, go through everything else and then review the other topics. I spent a long time trying to figure out all the quant on level 1 and there wasn’t much of it on the test. That’s also why I don’t want to kill myself over a very small part of the exam until I’ve at least read through the major topics first.

#7

Do most people read through all the material in order first and then go back and make sure they really understand it later?

#8

I second prossetti. I read through the material in order fist and then focus on areas of weakness while doing Q-bank questions.