>cfa 2 on saturday >going to murder it

>>1277704
First time taking it? Good luck. It's a real pain and nothing like L1. But I'm sure you know that already.

>>1277704
Good luck. L2 took me two tries. Its a fucking beast.

>>1277704
Same here. Can't wait to get this shit over this. Any sections you are particularly worried about?

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>>1277704
>mfw no one gives a shit about the CFA exams in Scandinavia

They're easy as a fuck if you have a grad degree in Finance (with some stat and accounting electives mixed in).

>>1278603
>easy as fuck

No, they're not, Sven. The difficulty comes from the sheer volume of material. Maybe you could pass L1 without too much preparation, but you will be killed by L2.

>>1278618
This. I have a grad degree in finance, a 750 gmat so I am not some fool, but I can tell you that it's not a walk in the park. L1 wasn't so bad, but L2 is a different animal simply because of the amount of material.

>>1278618
>but you will be killed by L2.

Doubt it, I did part time audit work before my corporate finance job right now. I've also been assistant lecturer in econometrics (mostly option modelling) at my uni until recently.

I got a pretty broad base.

Probably wouldn't get US Gaap questions right though, I only know it in broad strokes, we use IFRS/national Gaap.

>>1278640
>>1278618
Oh fuck yeah just remembered the "Ethical and Professional Standards"-crap. Would fail without reading.

>>1278642
I've got a finance-focused MBA and have worked as a quant analyst in hedge funds. I still got killed by L2.

Your attitude full of yourself pretty much assures you'd get killed by L2. Especially since your background sounds pretty soft compared to mine. Did you think anyone would be impressed by it?

>>1278642
Most US Gaap allows for IFRS. There's just tons of loopholes for shit like First In Last Out.

>>1278642
This is a joke, right?

>>1278642
>>1278655
I don't know how it's this year, but when I took it, I don't remember having anything relevant to GAAP/IFRS differences on the exam. Maybe a question or two at most, but the rest of FRA material is universal.

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>>1278655
Yeah, I know these broad strokes, and stuff like impairment differences and classification into fin leases, etc, but the gritty details - no clue.

>>1278652
>quant analyst in hedge funds

That's pretty much useless for a CFA exam though, except for some eventual questions on derivatives.

>>1278663
>useless
Other than quantitative analysis being a very broad field that touches on things such as equity and fixed income, both heavily prominent in the CFA materials, there is one entire fucking book out of 6 dedicated to quantitative methods.

You're a total fucknut. You're exactly the kind who would go into the exam thinking he's hot shit and then get Band 1.

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>>1278666
>one book out of six

My point. Most quants I know don't know their way around a financial statement (then again, almost no one in M&A knows anything about stochastic calculus).

Also, It's not like I would actually take one of those exams without reading. I didn't get where I am by just winging everything.

>>1278675
You worked in audit and corp fin. Those are not great credentials. Get a reality check, kid.

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>>1278679
You do realize corp finance = investment banking in scandinavia?

Also I wrote my thesis on jump risk premium implicit in cross section of equity options (comparing bates model to a hawkes model). The quant stuff is unlikely to be overwhelmingly hard.

>>1278687
If you would read the actual posts itt, you would realize that nobody is claiming that the quant stuff is very complicated. It's the breadth of material which makes it hard.

I am from Europe myself and it's highly unlikely that you jumped from being an auditor to a decent IB job. If you did, good for you, but stop calling it corpfin, people will laugh at you outside of Scandinavia.

>>1278675
I have an MBA where I did learn quite enough about financial statements. Especially in L2 it goes much more in depth and some of the stuff is quite a pain. And it seems like you have no background at all in equity and fixed income, and those are two biggies. You really need to put in the hours to pass L2. No matter your background, if you don't put in enough time and effort, you won't pass. It's that simple.

>>1278699
>an auditor

I was an audit trainee, it was during my third year in school (out of 5). I was initially handled just to do mutual fund audits as you need no accounting skills, just needed to know derivatives jargon to go through their fx/interest rate hedges. It was just a decent summer job.

I've done other finance focused interships in between before this place. Firms name literally has "corporate finance" in it.

>>1278729
Found you, Leo. Nice LinkedIn profile. Why did you switch banks after 3 months?

>>1278703
What's there to know about fixed income desu? The hard to know stuff you only learn from experience (e.g. how banks behave in restructurings etc) or some really complex interest rate modelling from economics.

Interest rate curve shifts, twists, butterfly moves and shit are things you learn in grad school.

>>1278736
Leo is much cooler of a name than I have :(

>>1278747
I literally found your thesis online and your LinkedIn profile which matches everything you claimed. Don't try to act dumb. I mean I dont care, but I would be a lot more careful with this shit if I were you.

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>>1278751
I really doubt you found my thesis online, as it's not available online. If you want, you can link it as I'm interested if it's in the same area as I researched.

>>1278758
Dude, there is a guy who wrote the thesis with the very same topic as you claim, he worked as an Accounting intern, was a researcher and the switched to IB. You are telling me that there are multiple people like this in Scandinavia with the same exact topic for their thesis? Let's be real here, we both know it's you. I don't even care, but lets just skip the bullshit here.

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>>1278766
I can guarantee you that he didn't use self-exciting hawkes jumps in his models (or any hawkes process at all).

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>>1277704
>>1278545
Anyway good luck guys, time to catch some shut-eye

>newfags doxxing themselves

>>1278603
i love how every CFA thread has a "i could take all three tests in one sitting and pass them with world record scores because i have a degree and job but its a worthless cert so i won't try" poster.

>going to college
>current year

Don't forget those knee pads

770 GMAT, finance degree, level 3 candidate
Walked out of level 2 not knowing if I passed

>>1278984
There was one obnoxious guy on analystforum who kept mentioning his ivy league blabla, how he's always top of his class etc. He took L3 like I did. And he ended up failing.

>hurr it has a pass rate of 50%
>therefore I will easily pass it because I'm always in the top 5%

Speaking of which, I'd recommend anyone who hasn't yet to check out analystforum. Some helpful stuff there.

>>1278747
If you have to ask... you don't know shit. Seems like you have 0 experience in fixed income, so you would need to spend a lot of time studying that section to pass the CFA exam. What you listed are just some basics.

>>1278766
Let me see then

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ITT credentialist wageslaves

How much maths in this?

>>1279681
The math is simple. It's the shear amount of stuff you need to be able to know and apply while digging through piles of info.

>>1279689
Memory regurgitation then?

>>1279695
No, level 1 is regurgitation, level 2 and 3 are application.

>>1279698
Ah. Thanks!

Guys I studied finance but I'm working in something not really related. I've been working there for half a year (just graduated) but miss the finance material in my everyday work, so I was thinking of taking the CFA I to show any potential future employers in banking that I'm serious about making a switch.

How do I study effectively for it? I'm not planning to take a course since I won't get time off/compensation for it from my current employer. What materials should I use to study at home?

>>1279727
You have to make a study plan and stick to it. While you can still manage L1 without too much effort, for L2 and L3 they aren't kidding when they recommend 250 study hours. Plan it out over how many months you intend to study. Leave plenty of time, like the last month, for review.

>>1279727
If you want to do banking don't even bother with it. CFA is useful for all kinds of research and PWM, but not for banking.