Are these two textbooks necessary?

S

stevenchang

New member
Joined
Jun 18, 2026
Messages
0
Reaction score
0
I have Schweser L 1 study notes for Dec exam.
"Fixed Incom Analysis for CFA" and "Analysis of Derivatives for CFA" are necessary to buy?
 
Some will tell you if you have the Schweser notes you don't need to buy any of the texts.

I bought the notes months ago and decided it was not worth saving $600 to not have the source material. I read the assigned readings and then read the notes including working all the problems. Areas of difficulty have me referring back to the texts and even doing some of the problems at the end of the chapter to strengthen weak areas.

I'm just finishing the Quant and this seems to be working well. To put my knowlegde into perspective, I have a BS in business (a minor in applied mathematics) and an MBA. All of the quant material has been review for me, as I suspect most of the curriculum will be. Failing is not an option for me, and $600 is cheap insurance in my opinion.

With that said, it is obvious (from what I've studied so far) that the notes may be sufficient to pass - they are well written and cover the material in detail.
 
Fixed Income Securities and Derivatives are very important topics in your CFA curriculum, Level 1 through Level 3.

For Level 1, you can certainly manage with Schweser notes. Thats what I am doing too.
But I have bought these books already. And I dont have any regret as it certainly will help me in in Level 2 and Level 3.



We never plan to fail, but only fail to plan !
 
'Fixed Incom Analysis '..its not really recquired for the Cfa curriculum, you could very well do without it...
although,my life depends on it since i study fixed income securities at a post-grad level.
 
Fixed Income Analysis is written in very kindly manner and easy to understand. It's a big book but due to a lot of end of chapter problems. Personally highly recommend it.

Don Chance Book is not very easy and you might need time to get familiar with derivative. Plenty end-of chapter pracice would help you. If you have only a limited amount of time till exam, I would say "look at Schweser". The real LII exam was as difficult as Don Chance Book.



Moomin
 
I agree Fixed Income book is excellent. It was useful for CFA level I and frankly I used in more in my MBA fixed income book then I did the assigned text. It is well written and easy to follow, has quant issues of course but these are presented well vs. some of the other quant-heavy FI books I have seen.

The whole collection is worth it - I find I use them for reference in my MBA program and they are very useful in terms of more depth vs. the Stella notes. If you consider it an investment over 3 exam levels price is OK. I spent a lot more on BS college liberal arts ("The issues of central american revolutions for 80 bucks for example) books back in my undergrad days, these books are a deal by comparison!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top