savageinfidel

Today is the day they give out results for the Level 2 and Level 3 CFA exams. Looks like pass rates for the Levels 2 and 3 exams were lower than their historical levels. To all who passed, congratulations - you're now one step closer to finishing the process. If not, here's some perspective from the "Godfather of the Analyst Forum" (he goes by the pseudonym of "Joey DeVivre"). It was geared towards the Level 1 Exam, but it fits for L2 and L3 as well: If You Failed 1) You are in distinguished company I know a college finance professor who took 7 tries to pass three exams. This guy even wrote a college textbook on corporate finance. (That sounds like an apocryphal story, but I swear it's true but there is no way I'm posting his name). 2) Nobody will care Everybody seems to have this dread that something terrible will happen when they tell their colleagues, boss, significant other, and parents. What will happen is they will say "Wow, hard test...

I just read a study that is highly applicable to anyone who's studying for the CFA exams, since there's a ridiculous amount of information that must be retained. When people ask me how much they have to study for the L1 exam, I answer "about 16 pounds", since that's the weight of the curriculum. But the study is applicable to students in many other disciplines. The study is titled "The Critical Importance of Retrieval For Learning" by Jeffrey Karpicke and Henry Roediger, and it's in the February 2008 issue of the journal Science. They examine the question of how best to improve long-term recall. Specifically, they tested whether, once a student can recall a piece of knowledge once, they most improve their long term recall by repeated studying of the material, by repeated testing of the material, or both. Here's the abstract: Learning is often considered complete when a student can produce the correct answer to a question. In our research, stud...

Results for the CFA level 1 exam came out today. According to the CFA Institute, there was a 46% pass rate - the highest in years. I don't know if it was due to the move to 3-answer multiple choice questions or to a better-than-average candidate pool (there were probably a number of people out of work with extra time to study in there). Either way, congratulations to those who passed - you can now register for the Level 2 exam. If you didn't make it this time, you can take Level 1 again in December. I have 3 former students (that I know of) who took the exam, and a couple more that were considering it. I expect the three I know of did well (hopefully, they'll let me know sometime today). update : So far, two have reported in, and one passed - still waiting on the thrid. Thanks for stopping by. I f you want to receive updates, either sign up for email updates on the right sidebar, or add our feed to your RSS reader

As many of you know, I'm in the midst of taking the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exams. I had been registered for the Level 3 exam this last June, but dropped out because of the Unknown Son's health issues (and I'm glad I did, because the time was much better spent with him in his last days). Well, I just re-upped and re-registered for the 2010 exam. So, I'm once again a Level 3 Candidate. At least this time I'm already familiar with well over half the material, so it shouldn't be nearly as stressful. I might even start early and keep with it this time around. With luck, I might be done with my first pass through he material by January 1. While that seems early, if I shoot for January 1, I'll probably actually finish by March or so, and then I can focus on actually locking this stuff down. After all, the material is interesting, but I don;t want to take any more exams for a while after this.

I just realized that I have at least six students that I know of sitting for the CFA exams in a couple of days. Three are sitting for Level 1 - all either graduated this past month or last December, and three are sitting for Level 2 (they graduated either last June or last December). There are a couple of other former students who'd indicated they might be taking the Level 1 exam, but that was a while back and I hadn't heard from them since. Good luck, one and all.

We're now well into the countdown for the CFA Level 2 exam in June. In fact, I'm about to teach a few sections of the CFA prep class I teach in a nearby city. So, the exam (and the preparations for it) have been on my mind, and I thought I'd start putting down some tips on how to approach the beast. First off, don't take it lightly. Although a good number of people pass Level 1 with only a month or two of studying, realize that the Level 2 exam is much more difficult. While pass rates are similar for Levels 1 and 2, the pass rates for Level two are based on a much more select pool- all people sitting for the Level 2 exam are in the group who've already taken and passed the Level 1 exam. So, treat it with a lot more respect than Level 1. The best description of the difference is that the L1 exam is "a mile and a foot deep" while the L2 exam is "a mile wide and a mile deep". A smart undergrad from a good program will probably reco...

I just noticed a lot of hits today from searches related to "CFA Results". That's because today is the day that the results from the December 2008 Level 1 exam are released (they were actually released about 5 minutes ago). So, there are currently thousands logged into the CFA site and hiotting the "F5" button every couple of seconds. Good luck to you all. If you passed, congratulations -- you now get to register for the Level 2 exam in June. In case you're wondering, there's enough study time to make it through the exam -- many have done it before you. But, you should get on it as soon as possible -- there are only 129 days until the Level 2 exam. If you failed, here are some words of wisdom from one of the most well-known posters on the Analyst Forum website (which you should definitely use if you're studying for the CFA exams): If You Failed 1) You are in distinguished company I know a college finance professor who took 7 tries to pass ...