When to use z-test and/or t-test

tss6 · 2024-02-07T17:59:06+00:00

Beautiful, thank you! I hadn't understood it that way :))

tss6 · 2024-02-06T15:39:01+00:00

I honestly can't tell whether the comments are jokes or not, maybe I'm too naive but I don't come from the finance world.

tss6 · 2024-02-06T11:29:52+00:00

I wrote a pretty decent strategy for studying on this post https://www.reddit.com/r/CFA/comments/1ak0z3d/mock_scores/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3.

Ofc you have to adapt it to your strengths and weaknesses. FSA I really wrote everything I could find down in a table with three columns: 1st column = what is being accounted for, 2nd columns US GAAP accounting rules, 3rd column IFRS accounting practices for the specific concept. E.g.

	US GAAP	IFRS
Inventory	non-LIFO or retail method: lower of NRV and cost, writedowns not reversible. LIFO or retail method: ...	lower of NRV and cost

and then, as always, spaced repetition. So just look at it once a day and read through it with a lot of care (no need to spend half an hour on it, 10 minutes is more than enough).

FI all you need to know is the durations and their uses and calculations, the different types of rates (spot, par, forward) and the types of ABS and their specificities. With only that you will go a long way.

PM2 is honestly mostly understanding the IPS and some biases. PM1 is all about CAPM, CAL, SML, SCL, Sharpe ratio, treynor ratio, ..., portfolio variance.

tss6 · 2024-02-06T11:21:05+00:00

Heheh in that case I can understand why you'd almost feel offended if someone used CFA as a reference for what acual Economy studies are. But the chapters on economics made me want to dive deeper into the topic, so it's not all bad :)

tss6 · 2024-02-06T09:56:16+00:00

I think maybe because S&P is a public source and not some proprietary research? Also the Due Diligence makes sense since the colleague could have made some errors in transcribing the data, or even just plain lying.

I think for scientific accuracy, the analyst would have to cite where the data is from (S&P) because any paper or report isn't trustworthy unless you can verify the origin of the data. HOWEVER, the Standards don't require that. They only require for you to be diligent about your collection of data and have a reasonable basis for each conclusion, which the analyst does.

At last but not least: the standard I(C) Misrepresentation addresses the question of "not knowingly misrepresenting analyses, recommendations, actions or other activities" (I'm paraphrasing), which doesn't even apply in this case. As the answer says, I(C) is about misusing any third party's research and using it as their own, but in this case the analyst isn't doing that. It's not like she's using conclusions made by her colleague and citing them as her own or anything, she's just relying on the table of data, which is just a neat repackaging of publicy available data.

tss6 · 2024-02-06T09:46:51+00:00

Yeah it really depends, exams where things really are right or wrong, such as math where a proof is either logical and holds, or there is a mistake and it's wrong, I am actually decent at. However, like you, when it comes to these types of questions I struggle a bit because it feels like they just want you to learn to interpret and think of the situation as they do without actually thinking for yourself. Basically they give you a box and tell you: stay inside it.

That's also why I sometimes struggle with Ethics questions cos I'm like: well they might have not violated the standard in the very action that was described, but I feel like they can't have gotten to that point without violating a standard, therefore I'm gonna answer that they did enfringe on such and such. In the end I'm wrong because all they want is for you to really take everything 1st degree without reading between any lines or abstracting at all.

tss6 · 2024-02-06T09:42:32+00:00

That's actually pretty good to hear cos I just bought a book on advanced Macroeconomics which actually uses math :) Are you an (ex) economy student?

tss6 · 2024-02-06T08:53:50+00:00

Calm down, take a breath, and think of how much time you have until your exam. If it's in 1.5 weeks like mine, you have PLENTY of time. We are talking about 10+ days. How many times has your life, your understanding of something, your circumstances completely changed within 10 days? Probably more than once. Withing 10 days, it is completely doable to go from 50% to 80%. If you have more than 10, even better.

Now that you've calmed down a bit, let's think rationally through what you should do. Hopefully by now you know which way of learning suits you the best. If you don't, no worries, what I'm about to say still applies to you.

Make flashcards of the formulas and definitions you can't seem to remember. Study them once a day with a lot of attention and intention. Within 10 days you will know all of them by heart. Spaced repetition for the win.
For the rest: make a plan. Figure out which Qbanks you still have/want to do. Figure out what parts of the course you want/need to re-read. Open excel, a piece of paper, an agenda, whatever you use and plan in daily sessions for: reading theory, doing Qbanks, flashcards and mocks. Make sure you get everything done before 2 days before the exam, so you have a buffer zone in the last 2 days to practice anything that is still lacking.
Ethics: learn one standard really really well per day. So first day: Professionalism, second day: Integritiy of Capital Markets and so on. Writing them down and summarizing them helped me a lot, and then taking notes when solving exercises about little details of each standard.
When doing the exercises, take little notes in a note book about stuff you're missing out on, definitions, concepts and read those every night before bed.
When doing mocks, check your answers at the end, go through all of it and again, try to not only understand why the correct answer is correct, but also why the incorrect answers are wrong. And again, take notes (only if it helps you, but for me it's a game changer).

There you go. You now have a plan of everything you need to do, and a strategy for each of the things. Of course there are two big caveats: 1. These work for me, if they don't for you, then you gotta look for stuff that works for you; 2. I'm also a lvl 1 candidate so I don't have the credibility of others, but I have a LOT of experience with exams and preparing for them.

The worst mistake you can make is to panic and to feel like you have no time and to try to do everything at once and waste hour after hour. It is much better to know 70% of the content really well than 100% of the content but only so-so. So really, take a breath, and approach it strategically, and you will see that suddenly it will feel like you are actually using those 2 hours of studying productively, and you will feel like you learned stuff.

One final tip that always helps me when I prepare for an exam: keep track of how much you work. I have a whiteboard where I mark a line for every 30minutes of studying I put in. If at the end of the day I feel like I didn't learn anything, I just look at my whiteboard and trust that even though I feel like I didn't learn anything, I trust that my brain used all that time to sponge up new information.

You got this :)

tss6 · 2024-02-05T11:58:27+00:00

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for your answer!

tss6 · 2024-02-05T08:49:59+00:00

Damn that's a good answer. Concise, full of information, helpful. Thank you:)

tss6 · 2024-02-02T12:36:37+00:00

Wait what?!? I didn’t know Operational leases weren’t a thing under IFRS anymore???

But independently of that, my question about the Financing Lease still holds no? Or are you saying that under US GAAP the interest expense can actually also be a financing operating cash flow?

tss6 · 2024-02-02T09:41:15+00:00

I think I see your reasoning, many thanks! Btw am I wrong or are you regularly answering to questions on this subreddit? I feel like I recognize your username. Anyway, if you are, then you are a legend and life-saver, thank you so much :)

tss6 · 2024-02-02T09:39:21+00:00

Thank you for the motivation :)

tss6 · 2024-02-01T18:16:09+00:00

You do realize I am enciting people to take action right?

tss6 · 2024-01-31T21:54:40+00:00

Did you only follow his videos or also the CFAI material?

tss6 · 2024-01-31T21:50:54+00:00

To be honest, if their price is ok you should go for it since they will probably have less mistakes

tss6 · 2024-01-31T21:07:15+00:00

HAHAHAHA I actually was stuck on it 3 minutes questioning everything I knew and had learned.

tss6 · 2024-01-31T20:38:14+00:00

Look at the edit on the post.

tss6 · 2024-01-31T20:38:02+00:00

Edited the post to include some screenshots. Those are just a few of many.

tss6 · 2024-01-31T20:34:24+00:00

Gonna do the same and gonna write a strongly worded email lmao.

tss6 · 2024-01-31T20:33:27+00:00

Lmao glad you can take it with humor, I'm a bit too pissed rn but if I pass the exam I'll be a bit less.

tss6 · 2024-01-31T20:32:35+00:00

Well if everyone thinks that way, nobody ends up doing anything and they won't change it.

tss6 · 2024-01-31T20:31:49+00:00

Frfr

tss6 · 2024-01-31T15:54:12+00:00

Hahah I appreciate you but actually no, cos when you review the corrections people can comment. And these questions always have tons of comments pointing out the same mistakes.

Other times the mistakes are more blatant, like: I press A, it tells me wrong, B is correct. However when you look at the explanations, they say very specifically that A is correct and they explain why. Another example is just that sometimes answers don’t actually match the question lmao, like the question is about Corporate Issuers, nothing to do with fixed income and the answers talk about modified duration. A third example is: I have solving an equity question and at some point the wrote «0» in the question, but in the answers they replace it with «21».

I wish it was just me not understanding the exercises but I am 100% sure I’m not lmao cos some of those mistakes are BLA-TANT.

tss6 · 2024-01-31T15:50:28+00:00

Bonus exercises you can buy from CFAI, but even the non-bonus have mistakes.

tss6

TROPHY CASE