@sophie
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Hi @skippingpiglet, congrats on L2 pass! Yes, timing is quite tight for L3, but it is possible with lots of focus in 4 months. It may be worth taking it slowly and aim for August, which gives you lots of time to properly go through and practice for the constructed response style exams.
To answer your question though, if you failed L3 Feb 2023, you can register for L3 Aug 2023. See our Journey planner article for more details.
Hi @roshicb, hope you’re well! Sorry you’re experiencing this, let me check with our partner who did the survey. We usually work with quality partners only and they may have a minimum period post survey before sending the gift card. I’ll get back to you on this ASAP once I hear back from them.
We do receive a lot of emails daily, and we are a small team managing this site, so please bear with us 🙂
Thanks for your patience.
Hey @jerrylow, @jewelswizz, thanks for spotting this error, it seems that we have missed out Q29’s explanation in depth in the email. You seem right @jerrylow
Here’s the explanation and workings, hope this helps!
Total expected return = Rolling yield ± E(Change in price based on investor’s benchmark yield view) ± E(Change in price due to investor’s view of credit spread) ± E(Change in price due to investor’s view of currency gains or losses)
Rolling yield = Coupon income + Rolldown return
Coupon income = Annual coupon payment/Current bond price
= $2.50/$97.50
= 2.564%
Rolldown return = (Bond pricet=1 – Bond price t=0) / Bond price t=0
= (97.68 – 97.50)/97.50
=0.185%
Therefore, Rolling yield
= 2.564% +0.185%
= 2.749%
E(Change in price based on Steven’s benchmark yield view)
= [–MD × ΔYield] + [1/2 × Convexity × (Yield)2]
= [-4.72×0.0020] + [1/2 × 0.20 × 0.00202]
= -0.94396%
E(Change in price due to Steven’s view of credit spread)
= (–MD × ∆Spread) + [½ × Convexity × (∆Spread)2]
= (-4.72×0.0010) + [1/2 × 0.20 × 0.00102] = -0.47199%
E(currency gains or losses) = 0.78% (given)
Therefore, total expected return
= 2.749% -0.944% -0.472% + 0.78%
= 2.11%
Hi @anna_p, yes I believe so since CAIA would broaden your alternative investment asset class knowledge, which enhances your existing skillset in analysing credit risk, structuring debt, determining optimal financing structure, and evaluating potential returns.
What’s your existing position and career goals?
Hi @raiku777, sorry to hear about your personal situation.
CFA Institute’s wording is not very clear, so I don’t blame you for the confusion!
So to clear up that confusion:
- Yes, you can register for Nov21 after failing May21 exam. This is correct.
- If you failed Nov21 exams, you can register for May22 attempt.
We believe CFA Institute’s wording isn’t particularly clear as it only applies for Level 1 candidates, where there are 4 attempts per year. So they cannot re-attempt exams in the consecutive windows (3 months away), but instead every 6 months (hence the max of 2 attempts a year). This doesn’t apply for L2 and L3 candidates where there are just 2 exam windows a year anyway, spaced about 6 months apart.
Hope that helps. We have written a CFA journey planner article which may help clarify the issue as well.
Hi @aveksharaina, it may be best to focus on one qualification at a time. However there may be opportunities to slot FMVA in between your CFA levels depending on when you schedule your next CFA exams.
FMVA itself is a pretty involved course, requiring 120-200 hours on average. Personally I would approach them separately, in order not to confuse the CFA and FMVA syllabus (if there are conflicts).
For example, if you sat for CFA Level 1 (e.g. May), and are waiting for results (6-8 weeks), it may be worth considering if you can complete FMVA in between CFA levels. This assumes you’re not aiming to register for the following CFA exam within 6 months (e.g. Nov21 CFA Level 2), as they do get more intense as you progress to Level 2 and Level 3 and you’ll need all the study time you can get. Aiming for the next available level after results realistically would give you about 4 months study time, which would be tough for Level 2 and 3 if combined with a full time job.
Alternatively, you could always do one type of exam after the other. If you feel studying and passing for the FMVA now would improve your career prospects, it may be worth passing that first, before the multi-year program of getting your CFA charter.
While you’re waiting for the new curriculum, might be worth checking out our research-backed article summary on the most effective study techniques for the CFA exams – reading (3x) is not as effective as doing practice questions!
Oh, and our free CFA study planner is already updated with 2022 topics! Hope this helps with study planning 🙂
Hi @vr-cfa2020, it sounds like you should have no issues achieving CFA Institute’s work experience requirements, which is essentially:
- at least 4,000 hours of relevant work experience, completed in a minimum of 3 years. These can be accrued from any previous or current position, and do not have to be continuous.
- relevant work experience hours must be directly related to the investment decision-making process or producing a work product that informs or adds value to that process.
- work experience earned through full-time, part-time, or remote work arrangements — before, during, or after your participation in the CFA Program — can qualify.
It all boils down to your description of the ‘investment-related’ work, which should involve:
- evaluating or applying financial, economic, and/or statistical data as part of the investment decision-making process; OR
- supervising those who do such analysis; OR
- teaching others on how to analyze and apply the data.
Auditing/controls work should be less relevant here, but FP&A, research analyst and investment evaluation should be relevant.
Hope these help to start, else check out our Work Experience guide for more details and examples to detail your relevant work experiences.
Study strategy aside, CFA registrations for August 2021 are now closed, so you might not be able to carry out your exam plan.
As for your original question, I don’t think it’s advisable to try and pass CFA L1 in 3 months off the back of your FRM knowledge.
We recommend 6 months preparation, and even if you assume a pure 40% overlap, that’s 3.5 months, and that’s assuming you’ve completely mastered the relevant bits of FRM.
Obviously you’re free to try (registration issues aside) but I don’t think it would allow you to maximize your pass chances.
The ‘usual’ recommendation is you’ll need about 6 months preparation between exams, and about 300+ hours total study time per level, might be more depending on individual. This should give you a good idea on what weekly commitments you’ll need.
Our free study plan (generate one here) will be able to calculate all this stuff automatically for you, just put in your parameters.
Given that you don’t have finance degree or work experience, I’m assuming you’ll need to put in some good hours and clear your final month for review and mocks.
If you’re sitting for your L1 exam in Nov21 you won’t be able to sit for your L2 in Feb22. The fastest route would be Nov21-Aug22-May23. Our journey planner would help you figure this out.
There’s also a beginners guide to the CFA exams that might be useful for you:
What Is The CFA Exam? A Useful Beginner’s Guide
Hope that’s useful! If you have more questions just start a new topic.
We totally get it and we’re on your side on this. For our part, we try and get the most accurate information to help everyone, but we don’t have the power to change CFA Institute’s policies on this.
As far as lobbying CFA Institute for changes, perhaps in time we can figure out a process to help candidates in that respect as well.
Hope things will get better for those in affected areas soon.
We were just discussing this in this other thread: https://300hours.com/f/cfa/level-2/t/level-2-syllabus/
The 2022 CFA Level 2 curriculum should also be released soon when Level 2 Feb-2022 registration opens, likely in May 2021.
All things considered I would advise waiting for registration to open and start your studies when you’ve registered.
If you must start before the curriculum is released, I would work with the 2020/2021 curriculum and stick to Ethics and Quant to start with.
Hi @tushar1804, I’ve merged your question with this thread which @mikey and @zee have answered in detail above.
Let’s look at the three CFA LOS command words:
Analyze
- Definition: to examine the constituent parts of something and how the parts relate to each other and to the whole
- Explanation: Analyze asks you to be able to take apart something for study (e.g., a financial statement or an investment strategy) in order to understand the whole in full detail. In the first example of use below, the phrase “including …” highlights points that must be included in an analysis.
- Examples:
- “analyze bottom-up active strategies, including their rationale and associated processes”
- “analyze the effects of currency movements on portfolio risk and return”
Calculate
- Definition: to compute, to determine by mathematical processes
- Explanation: This command word asks you to be able to show that you can find a correct numerical value for a quantity of interest, such as a rate of return, a present value, or a cost of capital. When the numerical value is not found using math but by some other means determine may replace calculate. Calculate is frequently used in the phrase “calculate and interpret,” in which interpret addresses the ability to explain verbally the numerical result.
- Examples:
- “calculate and interpret the cost of equity capital using the capital asset pricing model”
- “calculate and interpret the leverage ratio”
Explain
- Definition: to make clear and intelligible, provide insight into
- Explanation: Explain incorporates the expectation that you can clarify meaning and relationships. Explain subsumes the ability to describe. [Where calculations are relevant to understanding and covered in the text, explain subsumes the ability to calculate.] “Explain how …” means “provide insight into the ways …”
- Examples:
- “explain professionalism in investment management”
- “explain international parity conditions”
- “explain how flows in the balance of payment accounts affect currency exchange rates”
So explicitly explain includes calculation questions. Analyze is less clear. I think it can technically include calculation questions but most of it will be the kind of question that asks “When conditions are X, will metric Y be positive/negative/unchanged?”
For example, here’s Reading 42e of CFA Level 2:
analyze the relationship between spot prices and future prices in markets in contango and markets in backwardation;
And here’s a typical question:
When the market is in backwardation, the roll yield will be ______ for a long investor.
A. negative.
B. positive.
C. zero.Hope that’s clear – if there are any follow-up questions just reply to the thread.
Registration for the CFA Level 1 Feb 2022 exams are expected to open sometime in May 2021. Access scholarships as you may know are due to open soon, so if you’re certain to apply for Feb 2022 you could put in an application when it does.
We have a guide to CFA scholarship application here: CFA Scholarships: How to Successfully Get Them
The previous exam cycle (Feb-2021) benefitted from CFA Institute including the old paper-based format mock exams. So they got two extra mocks, compared to the one full set that current candidates have.
I think going forward the expectation is that there will be just one mock exam – the CFA Institute website states “mock exam” rather than “mock exams”:
