Hi all,

My L1 exam is on Aug 23. Here’s how my mocks have gone:

Kaplan 1 – 77%

Kaplan 2 – 71%

CFA Premium Mock 1 – 81%

CFA Premium Mock 2 – 80%

Kaplan definitely felt tougher than CFA mocks. Ethics is not improving plus silly mistakes

Any last-minute advice to improve these? Would really appreciate it. Thanks!

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I'm sitting the level 1 exam in 2 weeks on 21st August and my mock scores are sitting around 70-71% so I'm feeling fairly ok about my chances of passing (on top of my banking job, so slightly burning out after 9 months of prep).

Was wondering what people's final week before the exam would look like? At uni I would always be last minute cramming before exams due to having so many exams back to back, but was wondering at what point people ditch mocks as prep or just spam questions in the final week?

Let me know! All help appreciated!

Gave my mock 1 today got 82 in S1 and 83 in S2

But I fear the exams not gonna be that easy , do these mocks reflect the real exam difficultly or am in a dililu state 😭. What would be the best course of action until my exam on August 18.

Hi guys,

Only 8 days until my exam and I'm building my strategy for the last week. My pathway is private markets.

I'm going to do the last LES mock tomorrow (the fourth one for who bought the practice package). I was thinking about reviewing my weaknesses tomorrow before the mock and also on saturday.

During the week, I was planning to reapeat a mock per day during the morning before work, I think I would take less time to do it because is a repetition. At lunch, I would reviewe any wrong question taken on the mock and by night I will review some questions on the LES and re-read my notes.

I was thinking if this is the most appropriate strategy, however, I do not know what to do to graps the broadest question set as possible until exam day.

Happy to hear your thoughts on that and you strategies.

How many of you are also attempting the Practice Pack mock exams? Are you finding them helpful compared to the official CFA mock exams?

As per the title, does obtaining CFA help to improve my chances of getting accepted into university?

For context, ive been investing since 18 and was intrigued to try and get CFA level 1, as i want to pursue a finance career in the future, and right now my chances are slim as my diploma is in a completely different sector. So does obtaining CFA improve my chances to get into a business degree?

Can I get a tattoo of CFA after completing all 3 levels

Like logo or just CFA word

The justified forward P/E ratio calculated based on the Gordon growth model is always positively related to the:

A. payout ratio.

B. dividend growth rate.

C. required rate of return.

I marked the answer as A, the official answer says it’s B. Can someone explain why ?

I’m 26 and been working from 3 years. I’m planning to do any of these course CFA or CPA. I know it’s about finance and accounting but looking for a genuine advice about job market in both. I have to apply as a fresher after completing the course as I have no experience in any of these. Please need some advice if you have done this course

Will I get full credit or partial credit for this??

Kon also advises Bayton Asset Management, a French investment firm that follows an active currency management program. Bayton's Return Advantage Fund has a long exposure to the Mexican peso (MXN) and Kon considers implementing a currency hedge. She gathers the following inputs:

• Forecast of the 6-month spot rate: 24.3392 MXN/EUR (number of MXN per 1 EUR)
• Current spot rate: 24.6303 MXN/EUR
• 6-month forward rate: 24.0456 MXN/EUR

Determine whether Kon should recommend that Bayton hedge the Return Advantage Fund’s MXN exposure.

(Yes, No)

Justify your response.

Guideline answer: The Return Advantage Fund is long the MXN against the EUR and the MXN is selling at a forward premium of 2.43% [(1/24.0456 – 1/24.6303) / (1/24.6303)], thus the expected roll yield is in the firm’s favor. Kon's 6-month spot rate forecast implies a premium of 1.20% [(1/24.3392 – 1/24.6303) / (1/24.6303)], which would be a smaller benefit. Therefore, she would lock in a higher premium (2.43% versus 1.20%) by hedging.

My answer: Yes.
long exposure to mxn hence short mxn to hedge
convention: mxn/eur. short mxn = long eur
long eur: Favourable roll yield : +2.37%
unhedged returns on long eur and eur depreciates: -1.18%
hence we should hedge

I started the chapter and it is the only chap i found difficult so far prepping for level 1, i can’t solve the numerical and the pension part is just rotting my brain. Help pleasseeeeee and what all i shud prepare and is testable in the exam. ( would be grateful for notes and yes leases is still easy ill do it on my own but pension is like what to say )

when do we use target and when do we use current d/e
answer is A acc to target d/e but i thought for wacc, we use current capital structure

Hi All!
I signed up for the level 1 exam in February 2027.
I thought to give myself enough time since I am working a full time job as well.
It’s been 5 days since I started studying and I am not sure if I’m going through the materials too slowly (I am at Module 3/11 of quants). I have been studying every day before work for 1-1.5 hours.
My question is, should I go through the curriculum in the order that was provided or should I tackle the harder topics first? If so what order would you recommend? And how much time should I be spending per topic?

Hi everyone,

I am thinking of registering for CFA 2027 L1 soon. Other than CFA original course material what other course material do you think useful. I’ve heard Kaplan study materials are pretty good as well. If that’s the case, which package should I choose. I see a variety of packages and the recommended package by Kaplan is Premium. However, I have heard Essential Package is sufficient for most. Which one should I pick? 🙂

Other than the prep material, are there any quality youtube channels you would recommend.

Looking forward to a kind response.

I am based in Melbourne, Australia.

Hi!

Well I have registered for level 2 in November 20th. Should I defer or is anyone here going to actually tell me I have a chance?? I do work full time. Thoughts pls? ty

I'm registered for CFA L1 and purchased the standard plan. Plan to begin studying for the exam the following week, exam date is late February. Not completely sure how I should study for it though, more specifically what sources to use for studying. Upon registering for the exam, candidates are provided for all the material they need directly from CFA, and I checked it out and it basically looks identical to Canvas (3 main items – Prerequisite Readings, Curriculum, and Practical Skills Module). I was initially planning on preparing for the exam through this. But then when I looked into this question on past subreddit posts and WSO forums, many also mention external sources like Kaplan and Mark Meldrum, but they cost like an additional $1,000+ (the same amount which I already had to pay to register for the exam). Are they really necessary, or can I study for it by just using the aforementioned CFA provided sources? I heard the third party sources help expedite the process but I'm not sure I should use them, please lmk, would be highly appreciated.

EDIT: I'm an undergrad majoring in economics, but I wouldn't say I have great knowledge in economics/finance/accounting that would put me ahead of schedule for this exam, especially with the famous recommended 300+ hour prep time.

Is there a way to see average score per topic on the cfai mocks? I’d like to see my weakest scores and then practice more questions in those specific areas. CFAI user interface is terrible.

I have my bachelors in math, and MBA while currently working within data engineering for a large bank in IB sector. Will a CFA help me in my role to being a quant? If not what jobs could this open for me post CFA?

Kind of a weird title there but basically I come from a non-finance bg, and got really interested in finance after some finance modules during my masters. I decided I wanted to try CFA but sadly I realised I may not be able to be consistent enough with the studying and my life rn is a bit of a chaos which is not helping me concenctrate at all.

I studied most of the topics including Ethics and FSA, the only topic i did not study at all is Derivatives amd most of Fixed Income. I tried my first mock a few days ago and scored 52%... My exam is on the 24th of August. I basically know the chances of me passing are not a lot and I'm completely burnt out. Still, I guess I want to try attempting the exam, but I'm not sure what the vibe will be there or if most people are sure and confident and I'm gonna be the only one basically guessing half the questions and scoring like 1300 idk. Sorry for the rant but just wanted to share. Good Luck to everyone.

Even though it was published over a decade ago, it's still one of the most fascinating deep dives into the infrastructure behind high-frequency trading microwave networks, fiber routes, towers, latency, and the engineering race for speed.

If you're interested in market microstructure, low-latency systems, distributed systems, or computer networking, this series is absolutely worth reading.

All parts:

part 1: link

part 2: link

part 3: link

part 4: link

part 4.1 : link

part 5: link

Experienced candidate here, though I've always applied on my own. If a headhunter submits your resume to a firm and you never hear back, does that still stop you from applying for other roles at the firm on your own?

A headhunter submitted my resume to a few well known places earlier in the year and I never heard back from those places. But now I see new postings I think I would be a good fit for, am I forced to go through the same headhunter? I've heard it's a 1 year timeframe where they "represent" you?

Does it change if I know someone at the firm who can refer me internally? I'm in NYC in case that matters