#CFA Over last two nights I studied SS6 which covers Pensions and Multinational Operations. I switched up my routine a little bit and instead of doing the readings first, I decided to watch the lectures first and then do questions. This has worked really well for me so far, the material makes more sense watching the lecture than simply reading a bunch of text. I find I can get to the core concepts earlier and grasp them faster this way. I felt like I had to reread the study guides a few times to understand the stuff and it was draining. This way I can cover the material faster and use the study guides to fill in the blanks as I go thru the quizzing.

This material was not that bad, I really got the hang of it on first try. I don't think I could have grasped this material this fast simply reading the texts. Peter Olinto really does a great job of presenting this stuff and working thru problems designed to help you master it.

I think my new routine from now on will be:

Mondays - Watch lectures and quiz

Tuesdays - Watch remaining lectures and quiz

Wednesdays - Requiz on Monday's material and do item sets

Thursdays - Requiz on Tuesday's material and do item sets.

Friday - OFF

Saturdays/Sundays - Review notes, reread study guides and fill in the blanks with any lessons learned from the quizzing.

Of course each study session is different and the schedule may not work out exactly, but at a high level this is what I'll stick to the rest of the way.

#CFA Went to library today to quiz on SS5. I need to reread this section top to bottom as my first pass was not that good. None of this is hard, just a lot of little nuances to remember. Not too worried, a re-read of the material and going thru my notes will help me own this on my second pass of the quiz which I'll do tomorrow.

By the way, here's Stalla's advice on SS5

I did do a progress test today on SS's 1-4. Total of 30 questions weighted by section. No review at all. Decided to leave SS5 out as it was fresh in my mind so not a true representation of what I would retain given a week away from it. I think I'll do that gong forward, make sure progress tests do NOT include the material I just finished reading and quizzing on.

Answered 25/30 correct for a score of 83%. You can't read too much into these tests as they're not true representations of actual exam item sets. The questions will sometimes be in Level 1 format testing concepts, other's are single questions based on an entire Level 2 style vignette. The good news is that I recalled a lot of the Quant stuff I had reviewed last week so I think that area will be a strength of mine going forward. I actually got most of the Econ questions right but too small a sample size to really get excited. A different set of questions could have easily thrown me for a loop. Ethics was good for me too. Reviewing that the last month will really help me own it come exam time. Overall I'm pleased with where I stand now. I know the weak areas I need to focus on and given my plan, I think I'm in good shape.

Began SS5 today which covers Intercorporate Investments. I quickly realized how much of the Level 1 accounting I had forgotten. I also realized why I love Stalla and Peter Olinto. There's just no way I could have comprehended this material by simply reading the text which I did before I watched the lecture. If you've never watched Peter deliver a lecture, especially on FRA which is his specialty(he's a CPA who handles most of the CPA material for Becker, Stalla's parent), he's worth the price of admission alone. You can find some of his stuff on YouTube mostly for CPA topics. Not only does he distill the concepts down to easily understandable chunks, he makes you write a TON in the lecture notes which helps you "get" the material. I could only get thru half of the lecture which was 2.5 hours long because my hand was hurting, seriously. I'll finish up tomorrow.

The material isn't that bad, just a lot of small details to remember and going thru the example problems with Peter helps a lot in mastering the material. I got thru Partial Goodwill before putting it down.

Plan is to wrap up rest of lecture tomorrow, maybe do a bit of the quizzing in PassMaster. I'd like to get thru everything by Wednesday night as I have some commitments Thursday and Friday. This should put me in good shape to use the weekend to really drill this stuff home before moving onto SS6. I'm also pushing the progress test back to this weekend as well and will incorporate SS5 into it.

OK, I started off slow with Quant but picked it up towards the end. I'm good with multiple and simple regression. Once you get thru a few practice problems and understand the common threads it's actually quite easy. Time Series was a bit harder but again, once I was able to get the hang of it towards the end. I suspect most questions from time series would probably be qualitative in nature while you may find more calculations in the multiple regression area.

Stalla's PassMaster software is good but they seem to have too many calculation questions. I still don't like how you can't decide the difficulty of the questions you answer, something that QBank does give you. This is why I recommend using both if you can afford it.

Overall, I feel I'm in good shape for a progress test tomorrow. Ethics doesn't require much review at this point, Quant I'm good at right now because it's fresh, but Econ could be a challenge. I already forgot everything I read last week LOL. At this point though, I feel good about my progress so far. I've taken some good notes adding to the Stalla lecture notes which are a big help come review time.

Plan for this week is to take a weighted progress test tomorrow and then try to get thru a reading of FSA. This is the meat of the L2 stuff so I want to get a good jump on it.

God I hate this topic. I don't think I've ever been as frustrated as I was going thru the quizzing on this tonight. This material is a whole college semester or three crammed into a week and then you throw the currency stuff on top of it which is just SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO counterintuitive my brain is just throbbing right now.

Cross currency quotes with the bid ask involved was just the most painful thing I've ever done. Trying to get the currency algebra down was tough. I'm praying starting tonight that's not on the exam and they cover interest rate or purchasing parity.

I started to get into a groove towards the end but man, this was painful!!! To really grab this material I'd probably need another few days to concentrate on it, but it's not worth it considering there's only going to be on item set on it. I know my weak areas which I'll focus on come review time but I need to put this down for a while and go back to Quant before moving on to FSA.

A quick workout then off to bed...

Last night I covered Balance of Payments which was a pretty simple topic. Stalla does not cover Econ in order, it groups what it feels is the best way to pick up the material. Econ is definitely a topic you can get lost in if you don't have a mind for it and I definitely don't. There's only going to be 1 item set on this so the amount of material compared to the amount of questions on the real exam are probably not worth killing yourself.

Tonight I got into Currency Exchange which seems to make up the meat of the material. I've seen most of this in my MSF courses but at least I got 2 months to pick it up and digest it in school. Trying to do so in 4 hours was quite painful!! Anyone who works with currencies or invests in them knows the whole quoting mechanism is very counterintuitive. Some of the topics towards the end were new but not too bad. Ben Jones covered it during the lectures and while he ranks 3rd on my list behind Peter Olinto and David H, he did a decent job. I'm going to see if I can find some videos on YouTube on some of the topics I had a hard time wrapping my head around. I'll post them if I find any.

The plan for the weekend is to do the quizzing tomorrow night on Econ, and then use the weekend to catch back up on Quant since I didn't get a chance to quiz too heavily on that. If I have time left over I may go back and redo Ethics as well. Goal is to take a progress exam on Monday to see where I stand after a quarter of the way thru the material. I'm starting to get back into the swing of things, but I know the next month or so is key with all the FSA topics coming.

Hat tip to Vimesh for passing it on. I also linked it on the left.

CFA Cooler

I got an email from eFinancialCareers.com and in it there was an article on performance of CFA charterholders vs non charterholders.

I finally got the Stalla material in the mail Friday in addition to the flashcards. Immediately I am reminded why I prefer Stalla to Schweser when I pop in the video lectures to review Quant. The Stalla videos are just head and shoulders above the Schweser ones. I really enjoy listening to them, especially after doing the readings, it helps to really drill the material in my head. David Heatherington did a great job at explaining the concepts and I feel I started to "get it" after watching him. I think it also helps to use the lecture notes while watching the videos, you're forced to take notes to follow along and to me, that's much better than simply highlighting the study guide.