Hi friends,
I am appearing for L2 in June.
I just had a quick glance at derivatives and I believe completing that one topic would atleast take a month.
I believe I am in short of time and I am thinking would it be a good idea to let derivatives go and focus on other subjects?
Is anybody else too thinking on the same line of leaving one of the 5-15% topic so that enough time is left to focus on heavy weights?
I have been thinking of derivative, cause in L1 too I have been slower in compelting that topic.
I skipped Derivatives for L2. I ran out of time and it wasn’t worth it because I didn’t think I could master it in the time given. I just used Schwesers and tried to get at least 50% on it and make sure I ace everything else.
People do do this but I think it’s January and you shouldn’t be thinking about this yet. Maybe study it last, but don’t give up on it now.
The problem with skipping a topic is that this may be the year that CFA Institute decides to push that one to the max. Derivatives can be up to 15% of the exam: three item sets. If you skip it and they go with three item sets, you’re sunk. (Or, at least, a lot closer to being sunk.)
That said, derivatives isn’t nearly as hard as many people believe. I’ve written a few articles on pricing derivatives and valuing derivatives here: http://financialexamhelp123.com/level-ii-derivatives/. I’ll be writing more in the near future. Maybe they’ll help.
i thought the same thing when I took level 2. I studied derivatives, but I just said “screw it” to the swap section.
Worked pretty well until the afternoon session, when there was an entire vignette devoted to swaps.
I didn’t make the same mistake the next year when I took level 2 again.
I should clarify my position. When I meant skipping, I meant I didn’t devote as much time to practicing and reviewing. I still understood the concepts and read the CFAI material. I could still answer the qualitative questions reasonably well. I did not abandon it completely. If you do so, especially given you still have 4 months to review, you’re not setting yourself up well. I would also say that CFAI knows how much people screw up on derivatives and seem to put some decent weight on it, especially in the PM.
They’re crafty, those CFA Institute people!
You still have plenty of time. I would revisit Derivatives in May. Personally, I am planning to skip the Time Series reading for now in Quantitative Methods and come back to it later.
Sometimes I wonder if you are a double agent S2000… 