u/Moot231

First time writing, PW pathway.

Seeing all the posts about how difficult level 3 was has me getting in my head. I found the questions fair and only had about 3 that I was not sure of.

Also seeing posts about people failing 4+ times and then quitting got me spooked. I know a friend who failed 8 times and eventually got it on his 9th. I REALLY hope I dont have to study again and that this was enough to pass.

I did 4 cfai mocks and 5 Kaplan mocks. Maybe I was more prepared because of the tough Kaplan mocks where I was getting 75%+-. I also was prepared for the weird way they phrase questions. Funniest one in Kaplan was how Jennifer Long, portfolio manager was short the forward contract. Then being asked what Long's position was (kill me).

Going to be a Long 10 weeks... that said, i know if i dont pass it will be easier to study the content again and i will definitely pass next time.

Good luck everyone. See you in 10 weeks. And maybe lets get off reddit for our mental health 🫡

I am writing my (hopefully) final CFA exam next week. I have been doing a lot of mocks and scoring quite well (70%+) on all sections except for ethics.

It remains my weakest point where I am getting 55% on average, and I am scared that it could be a deal breaker in passing if things dont go my way on exam day. Are there any final ethics tips and/or rules you guys follow to help with ethics?

I will start.

1. If you have the CFA designation, you can claim that it has improved your portfolio management skills. However, you cannot say you will give superior returns, or are "the best qualified to manage investments"

2.  Cannot invest in a ETF that has the stock of a company which you have insider information, especially if the understanding of that insider information is what triggers the purchase.

3. Whistleblowing is not always allowed. For example, if it is used solely for personal gain.

4. Best practice is for advisers to avoid owning the same types of assets they recommend. If they recommend assets they own, they must tell their clients about the ownership. (This one is counter intuitive for me since I work in a wealth management firm and we almost have a policy that we must invest in portfolios and assets our clients invest into and therefore "practice what we preach")

5. Stand-alone codes of ethics should be written in plain language and should address general fiduciary concepts. They should be unencumbered by numerous detailed procedures. (I.E. Having compliance procedures like how to report a violation is NOT compliant with recommend procedures. Makes no sense to me but anyway.)

Just a quick one. I have found in mocks, it has been sometimes useful to control F and find keywords in the text. Can you do this in the exam?

I cannot remember.

Thanks

Hi everyone. I am just under 3 weeks out from my exam. Have finished all 4 mocks on the CFAI platform. Does anyone recommend any free or cheap mocks? I still have questions I can do on the platform, but I really prefer doing the mocks. Happy to pay a little bit $100+-. But not willing to pay for a full pre provider course 3 weeks out....

Thanks for the help. And goodluck to everyone studying in these final few weeks, we are almost there!

I am a L3 candidate sitting the August exam, taking the Private Wealth pathway. I also work in wealth management as an advisor, so a lot of the material overlaps with my day job.

Working through the content, L3 strikes me as considerably easier than both L2 and L1.

Level 2 was brutal, and a significant step up from Level 1. I had to dig deep. The volume of material I needed to understand at a genuinely deep level felt endless, and much of it was hard to get my head around.

Level 3 has been different. There are very few concepts, if any, that I struggle to grasp once I have read through them.

So my question is this. Why does Level 3 still carry a roughly 50% fail rate when the candidate pool consists entirely of capable people who have already cleared Level 2?

I was doing a question and saw that the question taxes real returns on investment and not nominal. That doesnt happen in reality does it?

https://preview.redd.it/em94rtkyqqch1.png?width=1342&format=png&auto=webp&s=9849ed5152a0ec199fd21446973da057283701a0

The solution applies the 30% income tax on the real return and not the nominal return. It is wrong as this is not how tax works in the real world. I chose A, as it was the closest to the answer you get when you tax the nominal return.

Am I going crazy or is this solution objectively incorrect?

Going forward must I apply this incorrect tax principal so I can get the question right?