@jwa
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Up5
Video isn’t working for me, though I am on an ancient office system with IE 7/8
Up5@edulima no idea where you are based, but in the high Northern hemisphere I found studying for LI a lot easier once there was no light after work… 😉
Up5@fabian good job, slowly gathering momentum myself… trickle of rocks turning to a landslide? Perhaps stretching that metaphor too far…
Up4@comicbookguy I think the key difference is perhaps between those who want to do the CFA and believe it is a worthy means in itself or perhaps a way of furthering their career vs. those who are basically roped into doing it because their employers have bought into the whole “its’s the ‘gold standard'” of financial qualifications, regardless that I and II are essentially glorified accountancy exams and III is a portfolio management wet dream… like that is the entire industry… I applaud your enthusiasm and the strength of your convictions, don’t get me wrong, but I think there are a hell of a lot of us out there who are just made to do it, and, quite frankly, a close failure is not a “yes I’ll nail it next time moment”, but rather an “oh my God I’m going to have to hose away another significant portion of time on a completely irrelevant piece of crap” moment.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am talking strictly about where there is little choice, i.e. I get that one could change career etc, but where there are mortgages, kids etc. involved and you can happily do your job without the finer points of performance analysis or whatever such nonsense is chucked at you by those in their Ivory Towers in Charlottesville, but your company is mugged into thinking that the CFA is the be all and end all, that is where it becomes problematic.
Up4@dmerriam88 I think there are various providers that off Msc Finance or Msc Finance & Investment courses with some element of the CFA attached, usually gearing you up to take LI in the final term. I actually did one of these and then didn’t do LI in the final term but did a thesis instead. It definitely helped me find good work… but where I am now more or less requires the CFA, so there’s a pretty strong chance you’ll end up doing it anyway, so you may as well nail it down earlier than later, i.e. so you’re not facing it when you are 30ish and very very bored of exams. Learn from my mistakes, lots of other people do….
Up4Just reading through the topics fills me with bile; vast majority absolutely useless to majority of finance professionals IMHO.
Up4@sherlock ditto; sure I am going to forget everything unrelated to work (not that I ever seemed to pick any of that up) and then there’s the endless musical chairs of fiddling around with the syllabus for each level every year.
Up4@um333 – could you work in London? Do you have UK nationality or a way of getting a work permit? I would have thought there would be some arrangement to be able to look at jobs in London given the history and Commonwealth connection? Of course, you may not want to leave Pakistan, but it seems likely that London would be the most promising overseas target for you…
Up4@MattyJ I destroyed so many pens and pencils, tore pages out of books. The only thing I haven’t damaged is my calculator, but I guarantee I will be taking a shotgun to that m*therf*cking medieval torture device if I ever pass LIII.
Up4My hard-copy LIII books arrived today – always used Schweser and e-books in the past. Genuinly taken aback at the outstandingly poor printing and binding quality, basically some glued together leaves of smudged toilet paper; well-worth $150, sorry $170, of anybody’s money clearly…
Up4Best thread ever.
Up4Why don’t they give useful feedback? Why the aura of secrecy? Is it really necessary for the institute to market itself so aggressively to the entire financial community, rather than targeting the elements where the syllabus is really relevant?
@mitch895 I think the stat I have seen was something like 19% of those that start the process go onto achieve the CFA designation, probably the same one you are thinking of?
Up4@RaviVooda you can probably see from my previous posts on here how I feel about the LIII exam and particularly the “essay” paper. The feedback you get if you don’t pass and notably have done poorly on that paper is also absolutely useless. I still have no idea what they want me to write and how. Concepts/material not a problem.
Up4@AjFinance – agreed, but I don’t think you can avoid the comparisons sometimes! I definitely started too late and too lazily last year so more a concern of repeating that error for various reasons. I have started now but not exactly leapt out the blocks, if I am honest.
Up4@RaviVooda Many, many ways – woven into other areas, or specific questions given tables of data, including applying Taylor Rule, Yardeni, H-model etc. If you just look at the all the practice problems in the books, you can see it can come at you from many angles.
Up4@vincentt if they actually applied all those LOS, it would make a mockery of the entire CFA process; “nevermind all that vaguely relevant, incredibly difficult stuff you just learnt, here’s a test of some private agenda we’re trying to ram down your throats”. Just look at 35m…
Up4Wish I had the luxury of time like this. Being allowed the week off before the exam I guess, but somehow don’t think I’ll manage six/seven mocks in that time, nor would it probably be productive to do so.
Up4The easiest way the CFA Institute could do away with any speculation/conspiracy theories is by being more transparent. I find their reasons for not releasing full past papers with answers (LIII morning aside) not credible.
Up3All,
In addition to the above, according to some notes I’ve seen from a study provider, the bit in study session 8 is not so much eliminated but a rewriting of the older reading 22. On study session 14, supposedly there is also a new reading on currency risk management that replaces reading 35.
Again this is just what I have sent through, I make no disclaimer about accuracy!
J
Up3Definitely definitely get the real books for LIII – I breezed through LI and LII on Schweser notes and just used the ebooks as a supplement for LIII…. failed band 10, the morning paper was a disaster in particular and I absolutely thinkg that having the proper physical books to read through in detail would make a difference.
