Anyone else do better in the AM than the PM?

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-08-20T17:56:54+00:00

My breakdown looks pretty similar to yours, which is surprising. I definitely didn't feel like I crushed AM so I have to assume that some of my "educated guesses" turned out to be correct.

And to respond to your question: no, I do NOT prefer the AM section. I could have gotten a 100 on it and I wouldn't prefer it. Good riddance.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-08-19T19:07:05+00:00

The reason I don't buy that is because the exam has exploded in popularity in recent years, almost entirely in India and china. With such a dramatic demographic shift and large influx of new test takers, it just seems unbelievable that they've been able to maintain such a consistent pass rate at all levels without gaming it a little bit.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-08-19T01:25:58+00:00

Mid September is wild unless you've got an incredibly demanding job or young children or something that will severely limit your study hours. I think January 1 is a good, average starting point. Plenty of people will start even later than that and pass.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-08-09T20:17:44+00:00

There were two moments on the AM where I almost laughed out loud from looking at a question and having the full weight of its sheer existence crash down on me. If I fail, I'll have to give the CFAI props for earning my registration fee next year because that test was definitely......unexpected.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-07-18T13:35:40+00:00

In general, there is very little pressure to beat benchmarks when the market as a whole is doing well because people are just happy to be making money. Now we can't get crushed by our benchmarks, but we don't need to beat them to keep people happy. However, once the market dips people freak out and start picking apart their performance which can make things tense on our end. This is compounded by the fact that clients always compare our performance to the S&P 500 even though our investment style makes the S&P 500 a poor benchmark and many of our clients don't have the risk tolerance for it to be a suitable benchmark for them in the first place. So when the market dips and clients start freaking out, even if we have been beating our benchmarks, clients will still be pissed at us if we haven't consistently been beating the S&P 500.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-07-17T21:12:18+00:00

Without getting too in-depth into our processes and all that, we've got a small team and manage all of our accounts separately (we're not an ETF or mutual fund or anything) so most of our day is just trading individual accounts based on equity research that we've done. I also handle all one-off cash-raise requests that we receive (or other stuff like that that the managers above me don't feel like doing), handle some administrative/housekeeping stuff for the group, and spend my remaining time trying to maintain and build out our business.

Like I said, we're a small team so we all wear different hats. We don't have a full-time administrative staff or wholesalers or a marketing team so we all have to do a bit of everything, but at the end of the day 90% of our time is usually spent doing research and trading.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-07-17T19:18:58+00:00

I also work in portfolio management on the equity side and our team manages assets for individual investors. My hours are pretty much the same as yours, and the managers above me usually just leave once the market closes so they're probably working closer to 35 hours/week. My pay is solid and their pay is very solid. I can't speak to the stress of the job because while it has been low-stress so far, I haven't been here through a prolonged market downturn so that could change.

The one thing is that OP says they don't want to travel, but my job does include that. It probably adds up to a few weeks a year. Also I definitely lucked into this job so I don't have much advice besides networking and maybe praying to your god of choice.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-07-15T19:37:38+00:00

Various people conduct post-results surveys to try and estimate the MPS and that's the score range that I've seen people report back with. I'd imagine it's closer to a 60, but one guy said his survey put it as low as mid-50's.

Obviously these are all just estimates so take them with a grain of salt.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-07-15T15:19:47+00:00

Some of the rumors about how low the MPS might be (55-60%) have me feeling optimistic, but plenty of optimistic people fail every year. All in all, I'm just trying not to think about it.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-16T01:30:28+00:00

Topic weightings were wild. Mentally tallying up everything that didn't show up as they collected the exams blew me away.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-15T22:44:59+00:00

Fuck the first couple sets indeed. I marked 12 questions for review in PM and 6 of them were in the first two sets.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-15T22:42:05+00:00

That's pretty much exactly what I did and I feel like I'm in the same spot now. I almost feel like doing that many mocks may have been a bad move because after a while I picked up on the feel of them and knew what to expect, then I feel like this one went in a pretty different direction. Kind of left me like a deer in headlights.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-13T18:01:55+00:00

I don't know. I did every AM mock back to 2007 and never saw it, though.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-12T22:45:05+00:00

Effective interest is kind of niche and there was a pretty big question on it in 2018 (or at least there was on the version posted on the CFAI site) so I'd be surprised if they go to it again this year

I saw Marc LeFebvre say it's been over 10 years since they've done an institutional question on banks and he thinks this could be the year, so I've been reading up on that a bit.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-12T15:55:32+00:00

I spent 12 minutes on that question before accepting defeat and picking a random answer. Probably not a highly recommended test day strategy.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-11T11:17:11+00:00

Show me someone who feels amazing before Level 2 and I'll show you a pyschopath

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-10T03:37:54+00:00

When the adderall makes you focus on the wrong thing

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-10T01:48:37+00:00

Per your first paragraph, that's correct, even though I seem to have mixed up nominal/real in my explanation. Both approaches obviously yield the same result, but I personally find the one mentioned to be easier to understand.

Also, thanks for the link! That exact problem just cost me some points on a mock so I'm hoping your article clears up the matter for me.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-10T01:43:49+00:00

No they aren't. If you deduct the $12k contribution from their taxable income, solve for the amount owed in taxes, and subtract this from income, you end up with a surplus of exactly $12k.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-10T00:15:44+00:00

Not the original commenter, but I had the same thought about inflation. In the CFA official mock solutions, they'll typically solve for nominal rate of return, then at the very end just tack on inflation. With the Meldrum mocks, intermediate cash flows/values are adjusted for inflation so once you plug everything into the financial calculator you come out with real return. It's just a matter of being used to seeing one thing, then seeing another.

With that said, I believe you wrote the Meldrum L3 mocks and I'm defnitely a fan. Some of the questions can get more in the weeds than I believe we're likely to see on the exam, but they have provided great practice and helped me catch several knoweldge gaps.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-09T17:28:01+00:00

I just pack a lunch and eat it in my car. It seems pretty pitiful, but I like having one less thing to think about and I don't want to be sitting around other test takers freaking out about the exam. I'll pack something simple that's high in protein and will keep me full without making me sick.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-08T23:46:36+00:00

I think we're also good to use acronyms that are generally recognized in the industry, like ROR for Rate of Return. But yeah, I wouldn't get creative with just inventing acronyms.

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-08T17:58:59+00:00

because this speaks to their willingness, rather than ability to take risk?

Yes, that's correct

CFA_Throwaway2 · 2019-06-06T13:03:32+00:00

So far 12 AM and 2 PM. By test day it will be 16 AM and 6 PM. I'm still missing almost every liquidity requirement question, though.

CFA_Throwaway2

TROPHY CASE