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NickQAnalyst said:

Hi everyone,

Yesterday. I took my first timed / simulated Schweser practice exam (just the morning session). I scored a 72.5%. I was too discouraged to take the afternoon session.

Thanks,

Nick

Nick, brother….

many people I know would literally kill to earn >70%! You overthought it, really. Instead of worrying, you should better prepare your mental and inner peace for the real deal.

[wm247]

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Well, my background is from physics education and not from finance, but I have long been interested in investment after reading ‘the Intelligent Investor’ by Benjamin Graham. From Investopedia, I learned about how Graham founded all this CFA stuffs, and then I think to myself ‘hell, let’s make a leap of faith’.

People in my country think I’m nuts, switching from physics to finance after earning my Masters degree, but I have faith in myself. I know CFA exam is a no piece of cake, but I also know that there was one professional who only had high school degree and never went to college, but still successfully earned his CFA charterholder at the end. If he can do it, so can I. 🙂

[wm247]

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Sophie said:

Thanks for sharing your inspiring story with the community @wm247‌! And yes, having a finance background is not a pre-requisite for CFA (in fact CFA itself is in place to put all of us on the same level playing field really). In fact, there’s some evidence by 300hours that having no finance background is beneficial for cfa studies 🙂

I think it takes courage to pursue what you want in life, regardless your situation. Don’t let the nay-sayers prevent you from achieving your goals! 🙂

Actually I started gaining real financial experience this year as I
left my old job as a physics teacher and joined a small brokerage
company as a junior analyst. Sometimes I feel aloof there, not only as the eldest
one in the division, but also as the least skillful at the same time. I’m
also taking weekend CFA prep class throughout the year to better prepare
myself for Dec exam (and still facing the same sneering attitude from
my colleagues who think I’m the wrong guy at the wrong time and the
wrong place, while wasting my energy with all that pipe-dream CFA
rubbish!). It’s really not easy for me at this point, Sophie.

Oh
well, just like one guy once said: “If they’re not cool to me when I’m
weak and powerless, and I also won’t be cool to them when I’m successful
and powerful.”

[wm247]

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christine said:

I actually thought warcraft was a game that taught me a life skill. I was absolutely crap at it as I played it more like Sim City rather than a war game (“look at my neat farms” etc), but it did teach me to keep calm and not panic even when things are going haywire (e.g. orcs pillaging my carefully built villages). It was valuable as I’d previously go to pieces at the first sign of crisis, but now in a crisis I try and salvage what I can (which is an improvement!)

Warcraft?? Nice! For some reasons, having the image of Christine playing Warcraft is a bit…. interesting. 🙂 

Sophie said:

i LOVE Theme Hospital! Never got pass Level 6 or 7 though 🙂

Ah, were you having any problem with the level where it gave you only three consultants at the beginning, and then all the new recruits were juniors? To make things worse, you need to invest a lot in several new diagnosis rooms until you could successfully train newly qualified surgeons, shrinks, and R&D people. Yep, that level was one huge pain in the ass. Despite all the wackiness, Theme Hospital is indeed great game to practice your management skill.

For those who never played Theme Hospital before, consider this: Some of these cures for these diseases: you get your tongue sliced off, your head popped, your jelly body poured into a new skeleton, and your own self electrified just to get rid of excess hair… and you pay for these whack-o treatments. Jesus, are these even real doctors???
>:)

artyeasel said:

Pharaoh. It wasn’t a super popular game, but I loved it.

Anything that is sim-city based teaches a lot about business and how to survive in a set ecosystem.

I’ve heard about Pharaoh, but never tried it. I’ll check it once I have the chance. Yes, I agree that Sim City is really one great game in practical city management, indeed. :p

[wm247]

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Agree, @Sophi. Yep, when we start to mess up even a very basic math, it’s high time we stop reading the material and do something else to regain our sanity. Playing Theme Hospital, for example. 😉

[wm247]

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CFAI material is the best, handdown. The only drawback of CFAI material is that those books are so bloody thick, that’s not even funny. :s

3rd party material is slightly thinner (emphasize on slightly), but you’re basically gambling on what part of curriculum they’ll leave behind in each and every year. Last year Elan completely nailed it, while Schweser seemed to ignore some important parts… although I’m pretty sure it could be the other way around in different time. 😛

[wm247]

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Hi Sophie and everyone!

I’m Willy from Indonesia, and I’m planning to take the Dec14 lv1 exam. My goal is someday to be a successful portfolio manager myself in the future. 😀

[wm247]

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Hi liveAvenue,

unfortunately CFA will only give you little help regarding trading technique like Elliot Wave or Fibonacci. They do have a small section on Technical Analysis for CFA lv1, but it’s really far from enough.

If trading is really your passion, why don’t you pursue a CMT or CFTe certification instead? Both offer international certification on Technical Analysis, but CMT is American-oriented, while CFTe is European-oriented. Or even better, you may want to join a trading school to better help shaping your trading mindset. 

If you ask me, both technicians and fundamentalists are actually on the same side. Only those Efficient Market Hypothesis diehards would laugh at technicians or fundamentalists, and believe that TA and/or FA will never beat the market in the long run.

These links might be helpful:
http://www.mta.org/eweb/StartPage.aspx

http://www.ifta.org/

Good luck, brother!

PS: I’m also a CMT candidate, lv2 to be exact. Yes, I believe in both technical and fundamental analysis.

[wm247]

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LEAST, MOST…. those words really start to get on my nerves. Under pressure, it’s so easy to overlook them, and thus bye-bye 1/240 point. :s

[wm247]

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I must say that the test was indeed not what I have imagined from doing all the mocks from KS, CFAI, and my seniors.

I’m proud with my time management as I could finish much earlier than my time allocation; I still had like 30-40 minutes after writing down all my answers, plenty of time to recheck and recalculate my answer sheet. Still, I cannot get rid this uneasy feeling that CFAI really went all the way to bamboozle the test takers, with all the red herrings they provided on the mocks before.

[wm247]

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wm247 said:

RoyD said:

Damn! I find it hard to believe how so many people actually managed to finish on time or way before time.
Anyways any idea on which week of Jan the results will be out? My birthday is on the 22nd of Jan. Hope it comes out after that. It would be awkward for me to celebrate anything knowing I failed (that is IF I fail).

If I’m not mistaken, it’ll be on Tuesday, 3rd week of Jan15. That gives us January 19th, 9AM EST for the results to be out then, and that also translates to 9PM, Jakarta time. 😀

Oops, I mean January 20th. My bad. :#

[wm247]

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Excellent. Just before I entered the CFA exam hall, there just needed to have a blackout in Jakarta. :s

[wm247]

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FRA is kinda pain in the butt. And this is coming from a guy working with number in daily basis (as a physicist).

[wm247]

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Passed L1 here!

[wm247]

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Happy New Year 2016, everyone!

My strategy for L2 this Jun16 is to tackle the low hanging fruit first:
1) Economics and Alternative Investment all done.
2) Portfolio Management almost done, tomorrow I should be done with the last chapter on IPS.
3) FRA, Equity, and Corp Fin are halfway there, but I must admit they’re quite pain in the butt.
4) Ethics is my spare time reading so far.
5) The others I haven’t really started yet.

By February-March, I hope I could be done with all the reading and then focus with all the EOC problems and mock exams. My senior reminded me that while L1 is about blitzkrieg, L2 is about combo… whatever that means. B)

[wm247]

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rsparks said:

Statistics, statistically, seems to be the hardest based on CFA results; however Financial Reporting killed me…it was like they wanted to see how boring they could make it and laugh at our suffering! I would have almost reread a rendition of war and peace or been in a saw-movie-situation than read that topic again lol.

>:)  [saw theme playing in the background] >:)

Hello, rsparks, I want to play a game. The game I want to play is very
similar to the game you’ve been playing as a  CFA candidate. The game of
offering hope to the desperate, for a price. I think we can agree that
your situation is desperate. So, I offer you hope. The price you pay is
that you must crawl into the same pit of squalor you force your brain power into. By entering this room, you have started a timer. When
the timer expires, the door in front of you will be locked forever. Only
in finding the key before the timer runs out can you unlock it and
retrieve the Schweser Secret Sauce inside. I will give you just one hint where to
that key is: It will be like calculating a figure on a cash flow statement according to one of the two rules that you tend to mix up inside your own brain. IFRS or GAAP, the choice is yours. Let the
game begin….

[wm247]

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The only problem with your plan here is that you plan to do like 6 mock exams from KS every Saturday within 3 weeks until the exam date. That doesn’t sound very productive, to be honest. CMIIW, but are you planning to do 3 mock exams only every Saturday, or all 6 mocks from KS? Because if the latter is the case, you need to readjust your study plan to incorporate 2 * 2 * 3 = 12 hours of test simulation every Saturday.

Other than that, sounds like a plan to me. Good luck, mate!

[wm247]

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A little Zumba dancing here and there during the break might be useful to relieve stress. Gotta use my ZIN after all. :smiley: 

[wm247]

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Based on my experiences on trading stocks and forex, I know that stop order is more commonly known as Stop Loss order. Limit order I understand, but I really have difficulties to convey it here. 🙁

[wm247]

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RoyD said:

Damn! I find it hard to believe how so many people actually managed to finish on time or way before time.
Anyways any idea on which week of Jan the results will be out? My birthday is on the 22nd of Jan. Hope it comes out after that. It would be awkward for me to celebrate anything knowing I failed (that is IF I fail).

If I’m not mistaken, it’ll be on Tuesday, 3rd week of Jan15. That gives us January 19th, 9AM EST for the results to be out then, and that also translates to 9PM, Jakarta time. 😀

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