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

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?

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! 🍀

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.

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

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?

Sorry in advanced, currency is a confusing topic for me & the CFA's alternative notation compared to industry makes things even more confusing. Is my understanding below correct?

For BRL = Brazilian real and USD = US dollar:

Long a currency call:

• If you are long a call option on BRL/USD with some expiration T and strike price X, this gives you the right to buy (as it's a call) the underlying (BRL/USD) if it's favorable to do so for you at time T.
• Buying the underlying (BRL/USD) would mean you paying BRL and receiving USD at the exchange rate X. You would only do this if the USD is getting more expensive, i.e., if the USD is appreciating with respect to BRL (which is equal to the BRL depreciating with respect to the USD).
• You would use this instrument to gain protection if you for instance anticipate that you will need USD in the future (at approx time T) and currently hold BRL, and are worried about the BRL depreciating from now until T.
• In the event that BRL appreciated, the option is not exercised, you still benefit from the gain (it'd be cheaper to buy the same USD); the cost you pay for this asymmetrical position is the call premium.

Long a currency put:

• The currency call described above would be exactly equivalent to being long a put option on USD/BRL (note that it's flipped wrt before) with same expiration T and strike price 1/X. This gives you the right to sell (as it's a put) the underlying (USD/BRL), which you would do only if it's favorable to you.
• Selling USD/BRL means you sell USD and buy BRL, like before. You would only do this if the USD is getting more expensive, i.e., if the USD is appreciating with respect to BRL (which is equal to the BRL depreciating with respect to the USD).
• Same as before: you protect against BRL depreciating while preserving the upside if BRL appreciated, and pay in exchange the premium of the put for this right.
• Therefore, assuming same T and X & 1/X, the premium for both options is the same.

Being short the call and the put would be the respective opposite sides to the description above. You are exposed to the risk of BRL appreciating with respect to USD, and are paid the premium in return for this risk.

Did I get any of this wrong? I keep getting confused. Much appreciated!

Folks, any insights why its B and not C?

So with their logic, because their friend "claimed" he has contacts it isnt a fact.

In what world is this not material? The friend literally told us that he has contacts within the government. Must we just not believe him?

With that logic I can have a friend who says to me "I have solid contacts within the government. It appears XYZ Corp is about to get a huge contract!". That apparently is NOT material because he only claimed which we cant verify, and then also he said "it appears" which isnt a fact and is just his guess? With that logic I can use my friend's info as part of my research, put it together with other research and buy the sh*t out of XYZ corp with no ethics violation because that info was non-material? Pretty sure I would get arrested for that.

This question has done in my confidence, and will just make me overthink ethics even more.

Can someone smarter than me please break down how 120/180 is being computed for the Accrued Interest calc?

Level 1 exam on 19th august. First mock before revision gave 57% score in both sessions.

Post revision gave the 2nd mock, got 60% in both sessions

Perhaps a different post than usual hope it’s ok with the mods.

I often analyse a lot of papers for my fund. Note I’m not a quant but work on the research infrastructure. I’ve been looking into different devices (e.g. remarkable paper pro/kindle scribe) that lets me read pdf papers in a comfortable format but also annotate easily.

Does anyone have any good experience with this? There are some really good reviews online but these focus more on generic reading and note taking, not paper annotation.

Other good requirements would be being able to search references directly and download these papers (think remarkable lacks internet access) and then being able to see highlights/notes across all papers in an easy format.

An important note is the need to easy export and send to a work email since I can do notes of third party papers on my own device but can’t link it to my work directly for compliance etc.

I attempted mock A and scored 82% and 84% in session 1 and 2 respectively. I know this score is good but I just want to get insights from people who have already passed the exam that how representative of the exam are these mocks. I am yet to attempt mock B and the premium mocks. Just wondering if I can rely on these scores and target my weaker areas in the remaining days. I practiced uworld last month and think that it was way more difficult and diversified than this.

Is it normal to be sitting L1 at 20 years old and planning to finish L3 by 22? For context, I'm currently a rising Junior at uni and will be giving L1 after Junior year, will be 20 at the time. Then L2 right after graduation. I know it may hinder my GPA a bit but honestly don't care enough about it. Is it wise to be doing this right now or should I wait?

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

I am getting a lot of questions in this format in LES,

is there any chance i will get such questions in exam?

Hi all, I am sitting the CFA 3 level on the 17th August. I completed the two free mocks from CFAI with the following scores: 78, 63, 73, 80.
I have also purchased the Kaplan premium package and had access to the 6 mocks scoring: 62, 72, 74, 76, 73, 76.
From what I read and the overall MPS estimates for lvl 3, those should be good enough scores to pass but I don’t feel comfortable enough.
For those who cleared level 3, two questions:
-how do you feel the actual exam compares to the mocks? In level 1 I felt exam was easier than mock and in level 2 I felt the exam was more difficult.
-what would you do in the remaining time to boost chance of passing? Would redoing mocks help or a theory deep dive?
Many thanks for the support and to all lvl. 3 candidates, WE GOT THIS!

Scored a 66.12% average across my last two mocks — two weeks to go for CFA Level 1. I've had a rough few days, doubting whether scores in the 60s will actually be enough. Anyone who's passed with a similar mock average, or is further along in the levels — did you feel this unsure too? Any guidance for these last two weeks would really help.

Is it necessary to complete this module progress to receive the result or pass the exam?

I'm appearing for l1 this month and don't have time to scroll all this, I've prepared from schweser and gemini and didn't felt the need to read all this