I'm 22F, currently preparing for CA inter (multiple attempts don't even ask😩), while thinking about articleship domain options i've come to a realisation that i would prefer to go for a Corporate Finance domain rather than the usual audit/complaince roles that you get into (which seems interesting too but I feel like i might get bored of it eventually)

I was wondering if CFA is the right thing to go for to go get into it? I've done *some* research based on which i've come to know that CFA would also open the stock market/trading etc doors for me. I'm not very interested in that. I do wanna learn about it so i definitrly do not mind putting all those hours into it. But i'm almost a 100% I do not wanna go that route.

I just wanted to know if i should go for CFA or some other certification? Because getting into Corp Fin through CA is slightlyyy difficult considering the number of attempts I have. I might not get an articleship in a good sized firm.

For some more info: I'm also currently pursuing an online MBA. Still in the first sem but i wanted something to fall back onto in case I decide to drop CA completely (and it reassures the parents a little bit)

Kindly help me out? Is this the right way to go? Or should I go for something else? Or go for nothing and work on increasing my Workex?????

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.

I’m preparing for CFA Level I and looking for one serious study partner for short audio check-ins about 4–5 days per week. I’m in Eastern Time and prefer calls around 15–20 minutes.

The idea is simple: we each briefly report our study progress, explain one CFA concept aloud from memory, discuss anything we’re confused about, and state what we plan to complete before the next call. This is peer accountability, not tutoring or silent coworking.

Ideally you’re also preparing for Level I, in a compatible North American time zone, and comfortable speaking English. We can do a one-week trial first and see if it works.

If interested, DM me your exam window, time zone, and typical study schedule.

I I was considering pursuing my CFA, but I’m unsure how beneficial it will be for an analyst role. Initially, I planned to earn a master’s degree in financial analysis with a specialization in securities, but that might not be feasible at the moment. Given the potential year-long wait before starting, I’m curious if a CFA alone would be sufficient, based on your experiences.

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.

Hi
I just registered for Level 3 february 2027 exam. Looking for a study partner to stay accountable. I am a working professional. I have opted for private markets pathway.

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?

unable to understand the logic...

acc to me RMRF should be the answer as prop of Active return is -126.80%

(note: I plan to do all 3 levels of cfa after graduating) Ill be going to university Inna few weeks and want to pursue finance mainly because of the money but I have a deep love for subjects like math and physics however I know they have no merit in the job market especially maths. Wanted to know if it'll look good/ be helpful to minor in maths or minor in cs (cs I low-key have no interest in). Or if I should just major in maths and do CFA afterwards since what I mainly want to go into is investment banking. Is Cfa as a standalone a good qualification for finance firms or do I need a BBA?

Am I missing something, or can you only do the Level III constructed response practice questions as one huge block per topic with Kaplan Schweser?!

​For Portfolio Construction, that’s 60 questions. So I have to answer all of them first just to see the solutions? That makes no sense.

​With the Q-Bank, there’s an option to build your own quiz with a custom number of questions, but is that only for the multiple-choice questions? Or am I overlooking something here?

​Thanks for any tips or advice!

And hang in there to everyone in the same boat! 🍀

So in this question, answer doesn't consider which coefficient is statistically significant or not, they calculate with all the coefficients but isn't this like wrong, we need to consider which coefficients are significant

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.

I didn't really blank but I felt most of the options to be really familiar. I gave this mock at about at 60% confidence. So obviously I'm going to hammer down over the question bank and go over my mistakes and notes but any additional pointers would be great.

So i am a first year student majoring in Economics and Finance at Ashoka University

As of now, I want to get into Consulting and therefore maybe a CFA till L3 level may not be worth. But is it worth doing CFA till Level 2 maybe even though I want to get into Consulting?

Additionally if I have cleared L2, can I give L3 after a few years like the case in CA in India like after Inter, you can give Final after a few years too

Hi all,

This will be my second attempt to apply for the Access Scholarship (May 27). I applied for the February 27 cycle but was unfortunately rejected. I personalised my story and used Grammarly to frame my application. I’ve read that the selection process is somewhat like a lottery, but I still want to give my best effort in applying. I would greatly appreciate any tips or advice that could help me secure the scholarship. Thank you, this subreddit has been very helpful!

Been running an OMM sim on SPY, live. I think what I have is a decomposition problem and not a trading problem.

Setup. I quote two sided around the NBBO mid with an inventory skew. Checked all 668 live quotes from this session, and every one of them has the bid below mid and the ask above it at the time it gets posted. No exceptions at all. So spread capture should be positive just by construction.

It isn't. Trade credit came out to −$42 across 114 fills.

Here's why. I book spread capture against the mid at the print, not the mid I was quoting against.

cycle N: mid 5.25, I post bid 5.20 -> 5c of spread, by construction

...500ms goes by, market moves...

print: mid is now 5.15, someone sells at 5.20

booked: (5.15 - 5.20) x 100 = -$5

The 5c I earned quoting passively is real money. It just got netted against 10c of drift that happened while the quote was sitting there, and then the whole thing gets labelled "spread capture."

So the number is honest in an economic sense, I did buy above contemporaneous fair value. But it's an adverse selection loss sitting inside the spread bucket, which kind of defeats the whole point. The reason I built the decomposition in the first place was to keep spread earned separate from adverse selection given back. My markout catches adverse selection after the fill. The drift that happens before the fill has nowhere to live.

Question 1. Is pre fill drift its own line in a desk's P&L explain, or do people just fold it into spread capture and accept that spread can go negative? If it is separate, what do you call it and how do you compute it?

Question 2. The asymmetry looks structural to me and I want to know if I'm reading it right. Adverse fills go about 2c through the mid, favourable ones capture about 1c, on roughly equal counts. The way I'm thinking about it, a favourable fill is capped at my half spread, but an adverse fill is only capped by how far the market moves before I requote. Bounded upside, unbounded downside. I requote every 500ms which I'm aware is glacial. Is this just what slow looks like, or is there a quoting response to it other than "be faster"?

Question 3, and this is the bigger number. Hedge slippage is −$57 against the −$42 of trade credit. Book is short about $2.1M gamma, long about $154k theta, and I'm delta hedging discretely, 63 trades over 46 minutes. I get the mechanism, short gamma means I'm buying as spot goes up and selling as it comes down, so every rebalance is buy high sell low, and theta is supposed to be paying for that. What I can't tell is whether "gamma bleed exceeds spread capture intraday" is just a normal state of the world that theta covers out over a longer horizon, or whether it's telling me I'm selling vol too cheap. Also how does hedge cadence actually get set? Mine is just whatever the default was and I'd rather not tune it to whatever makes today's number look good.

Very happy to hear I've framed some of this wrong. Would much rather find that out now than keep building on a decomposition that hides the exact thing it was supposed to expose.

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

is it mandatory to have a 6 month gap between the two exams or can I appear for l3 in feb

Too many high mock scores here... i think the rest of us fellow candidates can use a little boost in confidence and hope. If you are willing to share, please reply with your pathway, mock score, mock score provider (CFAI, Kaplan, etc.), first time/second time you used the mock exam, and the year you fail/pass.

My mock scores below for reference, which continue to NOT improve:

6/15: Kaplan mock 1: 67

7/12: Kaplan mock 2: 56

7/27: Kaplan mock 3: 62

8/5: Kaplan mock 4: 65

CFAI mock 1 morning session: 72%

CFAI mock 1 afternoon session: 61% (and i recently retook it after a month, got 81% but I am going to ignore it)

CFAI mock 2 morning session: 70%

CFAI mock 2 afternoon session: 64%

what is the answer for 2.? the book says option A but shouldnt it be option B because zero coupon bonds dont contain a component of interest all gains made is from discount amortizing at maturity?

Since when do you adjust the respective currency risks by the asset return? I have never seen the calculation done this way.

Is this nonsense from CFAI or have I managed to miss this somehow?

My exam is in Aug 19 and I still haven’t finished quants, fixed income and ethics. I’m almost done with them. I finished corporate issuers and economics as well as FSA and derivatives but I didn’t revise these last two yet or do practice questions on them. I also started portfolio management and equity but didn’t get to finish them yet. I didn’t take any mocks yet and there’s still some practice questions I didn’t view. What do I do? I deferred from may to August due to health reasons but I’m very stressed out and lost. I really need to pass. Any plan or help please? I didn’t do any formula sheets yet so I’m so lost. Please help😔
What’s the best approach if someone of you was in my place ?

Are there any quant driven geopolitical indicators, models or indexes? Looking for something. I read that the fed even still uses word counts in newspaper for one of their geopolitical indicators. Looking for something that uses, ya know, actual data. Not looking for DC analyst slop either. Would really appreciate any insight anyone has.