It's been a few weeks since I last updated the blog because I just haven't studied at all. It's been a combination of a few things:
- big project at work I was managing that just went live.
- being a single father who gets his kids 50% of the time
- lack of motivation with the test so far out
The last one is the real killer, I just lack the hunger and desire I had last year, at least at this point.
I did decide to start over and begin with Ethics. I figured the reading is easy since most of the stuff is the same as L1 which will help me get the juices flowing. Quant just wasn't doing it for me.
My new goal is to get thru Ethics and Quant between now and the end of the year. I started tonight by watching the Schweser lectures on SS1. Luckily, the material for Ethics and Quant is identical to 2009 so I can use the old material for now. So far the Ethics is pretty much the same as Level 1, you have to know the Code of Ethics, and the individual standards and how to apply them. Instead of taking new notes I'm just going to reuse the ones I have from L1 and add to them.
Here are the Soft Dollar Standards and the Research Objectivity Standards
I suggest printing these out and reading thru them.
After watching the Schweser lectures, I'm reminded why I prefer Stalla for the videos. The lectures are just not that good and the guy who does them is corny. He likes to crack jokes which aren't funny and just take up time. Can't wait to get the Stalla material.
- big project at work I was managing that just went live.
- being a single father who gets his kids 50% of the time
- lack of motivation with the test so far out
The last one is the real killer, I just lack the hunger and desire I had last year, at least at this point.
I did decide to start over and begin with Ethics. I figured the reading is easy since most of the stuff is the same as L1 which will help me get the juices flowing. Quant just wasn't doing it for me.
My new goal is to get thru Ethics and Quant between now and the end of the year. I started tonight by watching the Schweser lectures on SS1. Luckily, the material for Ethics and Quant is identical to 2009 so I can use the old material for now. So far the Ethics is pretty much the same as Level 1, you have to know the Code of Ethics, and the individual standards and how to apply them. Instead of taking new notes I'm just going to reuse the ones I have from L1 and add to them.
Here are the Soft Dollar Standards and the Research Objectivity Standards
I suggest printing these out and reading thru them.
After watching the Schweser lectures, I'm reminded why I prefer Stalla for the videos. The lectures are just not that good and the guy who does them is corny. He likes to crack jokes which aren't funny and just take up time. Can't wait to get the Stalla material.
Began studying tonight after work, got about 2 hours in. I decided to begin with Quant, just because I heard it was a beast and I also assumed that reading Ethics at this point wouldn't be as beneficial considering I'll need to reread it plenty of times as I get closer to the exam.
I focused on SS3 and LOS 11 tonight which covered Correlation and Regression. I've seen much of this in the Quant Methods course I took during my MSF program so this was more of a refresher although the curriculum goes into more detail than we did in class. To show you how rusty I am from not studying in about 10 months, I forgot my calculator at home so I couldn't work thru any problems after I went thru the reading. Not too worried at this point, this is why I started early.
The quant SS's are identical to 2009 and you can verify that by going to this link. This is nice because I can use the Schweser 2009 material which I was lucky enough to obtain to review this material before the 2010 material comes out. I also happen to have the actual CFA textbook that the curriculum is based on which is what we used during the course.
I only made it thru LOS 11 and felt comfortable with the concepts, nothing made my head spin.
I highly recommend you use the BionicTurtle videos found on YouTube. It's one thing to read something and think you understand it, quite another to read it and then watch a video that crystallizes it in your brain. They cover a lot of the CFA material from L1 and L2. I used it throughout my L1 prep and it came in very handy during review time. He has a few on regression and correlation I recommend you watch.
I plan on reading thru the remaining 2 SS's and will try to get to some quizzing this weekend on Quant. Nothing too heavy at this point, just want to get some notes down and break off the rust. I don't have much to quiz myself with outside of the Schweser material and the CFAI questions at this point.
I focused on SS3 and LOS 11 tonight which covered Correlation and Regression. I've seen much of this in the Quant Methods course I took during my MSF program so this was more of a refresher although the curriculum goes into more detail than we did in class. To show you how rusty I am from not studying in about 10 months, I forgot my calculator at home so I couldn't work thru any problems after I went thru the reading. Not too worried at this point, this is why I started early.
The quant SS's are identical to 2009 and you can verify that by going to this link. This is nice because I can use the Schweser 2009 material which I was lucky enough to obtain to review this material before the 2010 material comes out. I also happen to have the actual CFA textbook that the curriculum is based on which is what we used during the course.
I only made it thru LOS 11 and felt comfortable with the concepts, nothing made my head spin.
I highly recommend you use the BionicTurtle videos found on YouTube. It's one thing to read something and think you understand it, quite another to read it and then watch a video that crystallizes it in your brain. They cover a lot of the CFA material from L1 and L2. I used it throughout my L1 prep and it came in very handy during review time. He has a few on regression and correlation I recommend you watch.
I plan on reading thru the remaining 2 SS's and will try to get to some quizzing this weekend on Quant. Nothing too heavy at this point, just want to get some notes down and break off the rust. I don't have much to quiz myself with outside of the Schweser material and the CFAI questions at this point.
My twitter name is CFAL2Candidate, you can follow me if you use Twitter. I setup a Twitterfeed so that when I post here it updates my Twitter account with a link back to the blog. I also included a widget on the right that'll have a scrolling list of my tweets. I'll use Twitter for the quick hit thoughts and save the longer stuff for blog postings.
Tomorrow I will begin my L2 studies. I'm still up in the air on what topic to tackle first but I'm leaning towards Quant. I perused it today and I saw a lot of this in my Quant methods course during my MSF program.
For those of you on Twitter, I just created an account I'll be using during the study season. I'll have a separate post on that and how you can use it to track my posts.
I'm excited to begin again, can't wait to get back into it.
For those of you on Twitter, I just created an account I'll be using during the study season. I'll have a separate post on that and how you can use it to track my posts.
I'm excited to begin again, can't wait to get back into it.
Hello everyone, I hope the summer was enjoyable for you and I assume if you're taking the Level 2 exam for the first time next June, I'm sure it was very enjoyable. Congratulations to all that passed L1 back in June, I hope you'll be joining me for the next stage of this adventure.
After passing L1 back in December, I decided to take this year and devote some much needed time to myself and my kids. I'm sure I could have passed L2 right away, but I'm in no particular rush. With the economy the way it is now, I'm finding it's almost impossible to switch careers unless you want to just completely start over which I just cannot do at this stage in my life. I still hold out hopes of making the switch, but for now it's a secondary goal.
Enough talking about me, let's talk L2. I got the materials a month ago and I've been perusing them at a very high level, just to get a sense of what's ahead of me. The good news is that I've seen a lot of this material before so from that perspective, I'm not too worried. The bad news? This item set format presents a brand new set of challenges, one that doesn't lend itself well to the methodology I followed in L1.
I plan on starting the studying this week by going thru Ethics and answering some questions. From now until the New Year I'll try to cover all of the material but nothing too deep, and then hit it hard come January. I will be using Stalla, but will not take the live class this time and will just use the material and lectures. I'll also obtain the Schweser material and use it to supplement Stalla.
As I go thru the material my post rate will increase so stay tuned.
After passing L1 back in December, I decided to take this year and devote some much needed time to myself and my kids. I'm sure I could have passed L2 right away, but I'm in no particular rush. With the economy the way it is now, I'm finding it's almost impossible to switch careers unless you want to just completely start over which I just cannot do at this stage in my life. I still hold out hopes of making the switch, but for now it's a secondary goal.
Enough talking about me, let's talk L2. I got the materials a month ago and I've been perusing them at a very high level, just to get a sense of what's ahead of me. The good news is that I've seen a lot of this material before so from that perspective, I'm not too worried. The bad news? This item set format presents a brand new set of challenges, one that doesn't lend itself well to the methodology I followed in L1.
I plan on starting the studying this week by going thru Ethics and answering some questions. From now until the New Year I'll try to cover all of the material but nothing too deep, and then hit it hard come January. I will be using Stalla, but will not take the live class this time and will just use the material and lectures. I'll also obtain the Schweser material and use it to supplement Stalla.
As I go thru the material my post rate will increase so stay tuned.
Directly from the institute.
Located here
One thing I've already realized with this item set format, it doesn't lend itself well to quizzing via computer. You almost need to have a printout of the questions so you can highlight key information and easily refer back to the wording when going thru the questions. This will be an interesting challenge compared to L1 where every question was its own beast. I expect to use a LOT of scrap paper during my prep on printouts of the questions.
Located here
One thing I've already realized with this item set format, it doesn't lend itself well to quizzing via computer. You almost need to have a printout of the questions so you can highlight key information and easily refer back to the wording when going thru the questions. This will be an interesting challenge compared to L1 where every question was its own beast. I expect to use a LOT of scrap paper during my prep on printouts of the questions.
Wow they got here fast!
6 Volumes in total
The % weights are below. Ethics isn't as big as in L1, neither is FSA but it looks like Equity jumped up a lot. Good thing this is a strong area for me.
6 Volumes in total
- Volume 1 is Ethics, Quant Analysis and Economics. SS 1-2 are for Ethics, 3 is Quant and 4 is Econ
- Volume 2 is FSA. SS's 5-7
- Volume 3 is Corp Finance SS8-9
- Volume 4 is Equity and is the thickest volume from what I can tell. SS's 10-12
- Volume 5 is Alternative Asset Valuation and Fixed Income. SS13 is Alt and SS14-15 are Fixed Income
- Volume 6 is Derivatives and Portfolio Management. SS16-17 are derivatives and SS18 is Portfolio Management
The % weights are below. Ethics isn't as big as in L1, neither is FSA but it looks like Equity jumped up a lot. Good thing this is a strong area for me.
| Topic Area | Level II |
| Ethical and Professional Standards (total) | 10 |
| Quantitative Methods | 5-10 |
| Economics | 5-10 |
| Financial Reporting and Analysis | 15-25 |
| Corporate Finance | 5-15 |
| Investment Tools (total) | 30-60 |
| Equity Investments | 20-30 |
| Fixed Income | 5-15 |
| Derivatives | 5-15 |
| Alternative Investments | 5-15 |
| Asset Classes (total) | 35-75 |
| Portfolio Management and Wealth Planning (total) | 5-15 |
Order Information:
Description:2010 Level II CFA Program Quantity: 1
Curriculum
Date Shipped: 07/29/09
Will probably get within next week, will begin setting up outline for study soon after.
Description:2010 Level II CFA Program Quantity: 1
Curriculum
Date Shipped: 07/29/09
Will probably get within next week, will begin setting up outline for study soon after.
I just registered for Level 2 in 2010. $620 dollars with the discount.
I plan on starting prep as soon as the books arrive, I don't know when Stalla/Schweser will have their courses ready but I expect to enroll in one of them.
I will of course be updating the site more regularly as I go thru the studies. I fully expect Level 2 to be a beast because of the high passing rate this year.
Looks like the passing rate was 46%. That's high, and I'm betting the 3 answers made the difference.
If you're taking it in Dec of this year, watch out, CFAI may not want passing rates this high and may either make the test harder or raise the MPS(minimum passing score).
Let me know how you did. Keep in mind the URL change coming soon.
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