Just in care you’re not aware: back in Nov 2022, CFA Institute had expanded the CFA Level 1 eligibility for the program. This means that students with two years remaining in their undergrad studies will be able to register and sit for the CFA Level 1 exam, effective immediately. Here’s a quick summary of the …
How does one obtain the CFA charter as quickly as possible? Assuming consecutive passes (big assumption), the average time to pass all 3 exams in 12-18 months. While the fastest route to pass all 3 CFA exams in 12 months is possible, it’s a high risk, high burnout strategy that is not for the faint hearted… …
Umpteen years ago, after checking that I met the eligibility requirements, I signed up for my CFA Level 1 exams as a sprightly, wide-eyed innocent. Now that I’m a CFA charterholder, I wished I had someone who’d gone through everything to point out the potholes of the journey I’m on. For example, warning me about the …
CFA and CAIA designations can appear very similar at first sight, especially since the introduction of the CFA Level 3 Specialized Pathways, as they both target investment and financial professionals. However, there are differences in global recognition, breadth and depth of topics studied, career focus and exam difficulty. They could even be a complementary set …
When looking to boost my financial expertise and qualifications, I went through what was a fairly common dilemma a few years ago: CFA or FRM? My question was then: why not both CFA and FRM, together? In a competitive world of finance, with companies desiring prospective employees to have a broad range of skillset and knowledge, …
Note: this cheat sheet is updated for the latest 2025’s curriculum. Derivatives. Perhaps no single word has a greater ability to strike fear in the hearts of CFA candidates. The readings on this topic are replete with graphs, formulas, all of which seem indecipherable, and gratuitous references to Greek letters. However, it doesn’t need to …
The Ethical and Professional Standards section is challenging for most CFA candidates given the more subjective nature of the topic and questions (vs. the rest of the curriculum), and the sheer amount of readings to go through. Regardless whether you’re new to CFA exams or a seasoned CFA Level 3 candidate, CFA Ethics section plays …
Note: this cheat sheet is updated for the latest 2024 and 2025’s curriculum. Fixed Income is a central topic in finance, and it increases in importance (topic weight wise) as you advance to CFA Level 3. With so many key concepts to cover, we decided to create our Cheat Sheet series of articles, which focuses …
Note: this cheat sheet is updated for the latest 2024 and 2025’s curriculum. Ah, I remember the days where I looked at the sheer volume of formulae and concepts in CFA Level 1 FSA (Financial Statement Analysis) in despair. And how I felt 5x worse when studying Level 2’s FSA section… Financial Statement Analysis is …
Note: this cheat sheet is updated for the latest 2024 and 2025’s curriculum. Regardless whether you’ve a background in finance or economics, Economics is a central topic across all 3 levels of the CFA exams that requires some focus to master, especially the exchange rate section! Building a strong foundation in CFA Level 1 Economics …