Book sequence....

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litteraround

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New guy here...

I have just started studying for december exam. I am half way through the Ethics section, and risking sounding stupid, I have to say, I found it quite boring...

Wanted to start out on some interesting topics like Equity and Fixed Income securities to gain interest.... so, wanted to ask you guys, if reading Book Volumes in their sequence is necessary for proper understanding, or I could skip a few topics and come back to them later...

Thanks! CHEERS!!
 
if you're reading the CFAI books, you can go in any order and not miss a beat. schweser builds a little bit on prior readings, but you're still able to skip around.

if skipping around is going to make your studying more efficient / effective, go for it
 
You will most likely need to read Quant before moving on to FI, unless you're already comfortable with discounting, calculating NPV/IRR etc.
 
I would definitely not start with ethics. Read quant then do FSA. Theres not really any reason to read ethics now, wait until novemberish.
 
read ethics at the end ... it shouldnt take long..
read hard to digest topics now.. quant/ fsa whatever u think will take a while....as the pace will be slower now than when exam is near. so it avoids cram sessions at the end.
 
i dont understand why people waste time on ethics , i read it last time at work scored more then 75
 
Yeah there really isn't any point to waste any time on it until about two weeks out.
 
Thanks guys.
Its just that I am not familiar with the curriculum, so I thought to start from the start. But, with your advice, I have left ethics where it is, and Started on FSA...seems challenging.
 
Good, don't be discouraged if you don't understand something the first time you go over it. It took me until about 2 days before the exam to memorize everything about the differnces between expensing and capitalzing, and how to calculate direct -vs- indirect cash flows.
 
Another vote for hitting quant first. Lots of vocab used in ethics that you won't understand with a non-finance background
 
Quant, FSA to begin with. Remember quant is very cumulative and it is interspersed everywhere.
 
If I were to do it all over again I wld start with FSA.

Once you finish that rest of it really feels like a cake walk.
 
when i first opened the fsa book i struggled for a couple of days (no accounting background). Then (no kidding) I went to Barnes&Noble to pick up Reading Financial Statements for Dummies .. ouch ... Another couple of days - I'm all over curricululm again and it felt easier to approach and digest.
 
Thanks, gogiants. I think I will try to look for and buy that book today in one of the local bookstores (if not, I will try Amazon.) I don't have financial or accounting background either. Is the title Reading Financial Statements for Dummies or Reading Consolidated Financial Statements ? There is also one called Reading Financial Reports for Dummies. What is the exact title and what is the author of the book you bought?
 
yeah it's called "reports": light reading for a novice.
shshsh let's not talk about it loud here (feels so embarassing now) - I should probably donate the book to a local library )
but really - maybe it was just me being dumb and you'd do better at grasping new concepts from the curriculum
 
Hehe I think that's quite all right, Gogiants. I think maybe you oversaid it a bit :). The way I see it, one should go for help when really in need of help. There's nothing embrassing about that. I mean, it's better than not to and should not wait until it's too late.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 02:22PM by gugu09.
 
I just started a couple of days back. I looked at ethics and decided to put this into gray matter just before the exam. So my current reading order is:

FSA, Quant, Eco, Equity + FI and then Derivatives and Alternatives.

So far I feel that starting with FSA works good for me. I have some back ground, but it helps to remember stuff from school and many of the finer details are totally new to me.
 
Hey Gugu09, is your name Gugu or gugu09 stand for something else. It sounds like a South african name, Zulu to be specific.
 
PKJ, I am Asian American, to be specific, Vietnamese American. I live in Boston. I just chose "gugu09" as my name here. I don't think it means anything.
 
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