u/a_rose909

BACKGROUND:
Took my test today and passed! Been almost 2 years since I took the SIE so was a bit rusty. I studied for around 6 weeks and used training consultants as my main and supplemented with Kaplan qbank and Claude.

I had a a bit of a weird situation where I took the test last week and around 75 questions in, FINRA servers went down and my exam crashed. They tried to fix it but couldn’t and I was forced to reschedule and take it again this week. On the bright side, I got familiarized with the question style and the interface. I also saw at least 4 of the same questions from the first exam on the exam today.

MY DRAW:
I don’t know if I got an easy draw or was just prepared but felt pretty confident clicking submit. I got a ton of option questions (maybe more than 20), good amount of muni and investment companies, decent amount of suitability, more than expected number on annuities, like 3 questions on tender offer timelines, less than expected number on GSE securities, and one measly margin question.

MY ADVICE:

1. Trust your knowledge for what you know, be confident in what you don’t know.

When you get to a question and you know it, DONT SECOND GUESS IT, just input your answer and move on. For stuff you don’t know, don’t panic or let it nick your confidence, take your time and take your best educated guess.

2. Study everything and try to have a good understanding of it all. A lot of the material you study and memorize won’t be on the test but it might help you rule out an answer choice on a question.

Everything is fair game and most of what you study won’t be on the exam. BUT, it could help you eliminate an answer choice. Many times I was able to rule out an answer and make a better educated guess on a question because of comprehensive knowledge.

3. Don’t let practice exams be the end all be all for everything (I fell into this trap). The practice exams are nothing more than a tool so if you score poorly on one exam don’t let that dictate your confidence.

Yes, Kaplan and other practice exams are way harder than the real exam. And that is a good thing as it really makes you understand small details. I found the test to be way easier but that’s not to say that the practice didn’t help drill the material into my head. In the end, practice exams are just a tool to help you learn so don’t let your scores dictate everything. Also, just because a question is difficult on a practice exam never just chalk it up to “oh I’ll never see that” because sure enough you will.

4. Don’t forget the main stuff. Throughout my studying (especially near the end), I noticed that I went down a rabbit hole with small little details and it caused me to ignore the most basic concepts and formulas. This past few days I focused mainly on simple need to know stuff (Ken’s guerrilla video is great for this). Be sure to know all the main topics like the back of your hand.

This is my biggest critique of study providers. They do this thing that they get so fixated on the smallest things that they ignore the main content.

5. BE CONFIDENT GOING IN. FINRA wants to make you feel confused and like you’re failing… DONT LET THEM!!! For some asinine reason, FINRA thinks they’re better than you. WELL GUESS WHAT?!? THEYRE NOT SO GO SHOW EM!!!

Do whatever you got to do to get yourself fired up and don’t let your confidence waver. Never admit failure and go in with a f*ck you attitude and it will help in answering questions. If at any point during the exam your brain tries to convince you you’re failing, tell it to shut the f up.

Best luck to all and you got this!!

Am I ready to sit for the exam? I’ve done a ton of studying and feel like I know the products and suitability really well. I’ve been trying to get 80s to feel more confident but am beginning to plateau.

I’ve been using Training Consultants to study (which I know isn’t a popular study service people use but I like it). I’ve scored 68%, 72%, 75%, 75%. And then I did Ken’s brutal exam today and got at 68%.

Overall I feel confident that I know the material but just feel like that confidence and knowledge of material doesn’t flow through to the exam. I feel like a lot of the questions I get wrong are more just on semantics, wording, and small minute details than a knowledge gap. (Which is frustrating because idk why FINRA likes ambiguity and playing word games on a financial exam but I digress).

I have been following the protocol of studying, taking practice exam, fixing weak spots, then testing again but just can’t break through this hump to get my scores to 80% before sitting for the exam.

Any insight or advice? I’m rather frustrated and I really want to pass on first try as just started a new job and don’t want to be the guy that fails and has to wait thirty days.

Is the minimum equity for pattern day trader accounts still $25,000 from a series 7 standpoint? I know recently the SEC recently scrapped this rule if I’m not mistaken so I just want to make sure. Thanks

Google is absolutely positively the best stock on the market right now and it isn’t even close. One year ago Google was getting torn up given reports of AI taking over search and them lagging in the AI chatbot space.

Although that has all changed as now Gemini has emerged as the favorite in the space. This is due to a few key reasons:

AI Laggard: Investors had highly doubted Google’s ability to build a chat model. These doubts have been quelled as the company by far has the most data to train their models given their dominance in search and video. This has propelled Gemini into a strong long term favorite.

Competitors Shift: Open AI has chosen to focus more heavily on corporate clients, which has caused them to cut costs in the consumer space. Therefore Chat GPT’s quality has struggled, prompting a perfect opportunity for someone to take market share within the consumer chatbot space. Suffice to say, Google (along with Anthropic) has leaped on this opportunity.

Infrastructure: Google has chosen to run and train their models on their in house built TPU’s. A risky yet bold decision given most models run on GPU’s. On one hand, Google through this does not need to rely on Nvidia or AMD to get their chips, allowing them to stay out of a lot of drama revolving GPU demand. On the other, if Google can prove TPU’s deliver lower cost per token, they will not only completely change the AI landscape but can find themselves challenging the likes of Nvidia in space. This second part remains to be unseen.

Elsewhere Google still remains one of the best names in cloud, YouTube still dominates streaming, and Waymo is overtaking the FSD ride share market.

Investors only concerns are their massive capital expenditure. This concern is blasphemy as AI will require large investments eventually so best they show it now. Investors are fine dumping money into AI but as soon as those companies they are pouring money into begin investing in the infrastructure needed, it becomes a problem to investors. Wall Street seems to have a hypocrisy problem when it comes to AI investment.

Overall, Google has shown its ability to step to the plate in AI while maintaining consistent growth in other areas of the business. 28 years ago, Google was founded and quickly became a disruptor. Today, they enter a whole new chapter with AI and have already shown ability to be the disruptor everyone knows them to be. Investors would be remised not to bet on Google’s ability going forward.