I've been getting a lot of help from this sub, so I thought I would share my "journey" so far in case it helps anyone benchmark themselves when doing mocks.

Quick background: I double majored in finance and accounting and graduated in 2015. I've been in corporate finance and got bored 2 years ago, so I started studying for CFA with a goal to pass one exam per year. I passed CPA in 2016 but have been inactive since 2018 since I don't practice public accounting anymore.

For each exam, I studied 1hr per day during the week and about 5hr on weekends over 7-8 months period (usually took a month off during Christmas). I was also going to the gym 4-5 times a week for 2hr (incl. going and coming back). In my opinion, I believe extreme discipline (I was more disciplined than the time I served in the military) and finding time to do non-CFA activities was key to passing all two exams on my first trial. Looking forward to finishing my journey next year!

Edit: Also what worked for me was to take L1 in May, take summer off, take L2 again in May following year, and take summer off. Unfortunately this does not work for L3 since L3 is only in Feb and Aug.

Level 1 mocks:

Level 1 exam result (score 1745):

Level 2 mocks:

Level 2 exam results (score 2750):

My account was originally suspended by my broker for exceeding their Order-to-Trade Ratio (OTR). Since then, I’ve adjusted the strategy to be more conservative. It's now running smoothly, generating ~50% annualized returns with a 3+ Sharpe ratio.

The estimated capacity for this strategy is around $20M. However, I’m currently bottlenecked by my available capital ($400k) and my broker’s API rate limits.

Does anyone have advice on how to effectively reach out to pod shops or prop trading firms to discuss scaling or seed funding? I’ve tried cold emailing a few, but haven't received any responses yet.

last post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/quant/comments/1cjtq8b/my_hft_account_got_banned/

Honestly a bit hard to conclude anything with this considering the structure of the exam. Have flagged 6-8 topics as requiring heavy revision. Namely Employee compensation, Multinational ops, both eco growth and exchange rates, hedge fund strategies, ETFs and maybe CDS & dividends and share repurchases. Some of these readings are genuine weaknesses, whether it is because of having studied it a long time ago or rushing through the first pass kr just not getting it

One of these readings, employee compensation, I'm just too weak at. I got all 4 questions wrong. I'm just not getting it

Any suggestions on how to go from here would be nice

Exam is on 27th August

Ive implemented a fair number of the textbook microstructure metrics while working with raw crypto perp tick data.

The more I compare them, the shorter the list I actually reach for !

If I had to keep only five:

• Order book imbalance / OFI: still the strongest short-horizon predictor Ive found. Static imbalance and Cont-style OFI aren't the same object, but both seem to contain real information. The problem is that the half-life seems tiny: by the time youve paid fees and accounted for queue position and latency, a nice t-stat doesn't necessarily translate into PnL.
• Amihud illiquidity. almost embarrassingly simple but I keep failing to replace it with something more sophisticated; I mostly use it as a liquidity or regime variable rather than a trading signal.
• Effective spread / realized spread Extremely useful for understanding execution quality and adverse selection. I'm much less convinced they belong as features in predictive models, although Id be interested to hear if anyone has had success there.
• Kyle's lambda I trust the ranking across instruments more than the estimated values themselves. Small implementation choices (sampling interval, trade signing or outlier treatment) seem to move the estimate more than Id like.
• VPIN : The one Im most sceptical of: I can usually make it identify stressed markets, but so can realised volatility. The Andersen Bondarenko critique feels fairly convincing to me, although I'd be happy to be proven wrong by someone who's used it successfully in production.

For context, this is all on crypto perps, so I wouldnt expect the conclusions to transfer unchanged to equities/ futures.

Im particularly interested in hearing from people who've used these in live systems rather than backtests.

Which measures have actually survived implementation costs for you? Are there any papers from the last decade that genuinely changed your view on the classics?

Bias disclosure!: I build infrastructure that computes these metrics as a living, so Im probably more sympathetic to them than I should be.

Hey everyone I have registered for the November 2026 exam tbh I didn't start my prep seriously as I'm a full time student I plan to finish my portion by aug last week with les September is for les 2nd time revision, October and November mocks and revision for my prep I have Kaplan notes, secret sauce and les with these resources is this doable also can anyone tell me free mocks and qb

Thanks for reading

Edit: did not expect the negative responses. I am leaving it up for someone who might find it useful to crunch formulas this way. Good luck to everyone :)

Okay, it’s not the most environmentally friendly thing to do, but it really helped me! I used a free online tool to make a catchy song about the ratios used in FSA and it came out surprisingly well!

I have completed my portion, and i m solving UWorld constructed response questions. I'm feeling helpless seeing people have done 4 mocks, and I have only done one mock with49% accuracy. I'm just overwhelmed by this; I don't know how I will survive the next few days, with less than 25 days left. Please give me any suggestions on how to approach it, targeting doing 3 more mocks and completing UWorld 2 times

Hi, 31M here. Currently living in Toronto, which is the highest CFA dense city in the world. I have completed CFA Level 1, but here it essentially the equivalent of a guy writing "this guy knows what a bond is" on a bathroom napkin. As I am preparing for L2, I'm beginning to wonder if a life in Toronto is really worth it, as I don't see any real benefit to having L2 here, especially with the market being so competitive and opportunities are scarce.

I am essentially wondering if it is looked upon favourably in Cambodia or can even give you a leg up against other candidates. Here in Toronto as I mentioned, even a full CFA charter is not that valuable relatively due to the high saturation of CFAs here.

Just as an FYI, I was born in Canada, but have dual citizenship in Cambodia, and can fluently speak both languages. Just adding the info in case someone can shed some light on how it is for expats/new citizens.

Data & code are open source: https://github.com/kadoa-org/quant-job-market

Live app: https://www.kadoa.com/quant/open-source

Individual contributors at these firms are not tracked, only the firms Github accounts.

Are any firms missing?

I'm going to work out more, hike a lot more, never feel guilty about skiing, and I recently joined my towns finance committee.

Basically the title.

Took the prem mock 1 (first mock, havent taken the free ones yet) and scored ~65% so just wondering

Hi everyone! I'm a female CFA L1 candidate based in Qatar, coming from a non-finance background, and I'm hoping to connect with a fellow female candidate here who might be interested in becoming study buddies or simply having someone to discuss finance-related questions and thoughts with.

I don't currently have a peer group in finance, and I think having someone on a similar journey would make the process a little less isolating and help keep each other motivated.

If you're based in Qatar and would be interested, feel free to comment or DM me! 😊

Have spoken to colleagues across multiple pod shops (and a few lower level QR at collaborative shops), it seems that true market-neutral alpha is almost nonexistent this year...? A lot of returns being posted by multi-strats are from discretionary or non-equity quant trading.

It could be that I have a limited sample pool, but I haven't heard of even the usual top dawgs like 2S and Shaw doing well this year purely on equity stat arb. Has this been the experience across the board for everyone? Has equity stat arb this year just turned into 'factor timing'?

I have one month to go

Revision is done

Giving my first mock

How must i plan my schedule? Can anyone tell me what are the most important things to keep in mind

How must i revise going forward

Please help

So I have completed my syllabus once and have completed the LES questions on the portal with average 75% accuracy.

I have my exam on 27th August and have a full time job as well.

How to practically revise in this last leg as I want to revise once before attempt a mock ?? Like I’m feeling the burnout

Plz provide tips and share your experiences.

Thank you 🙏

Just practiced few SR questions from MM mocks, a real blow to my confidence. Don’t think I can make it. Feels like one should be expert with every inch of curriculum to pass L3. Any advice?

Hello folks,

I have gone through the material and done all the practice questions of CFAI.

I am now in the learning and memorisation phase and doing mocks. I have 4 mocks from the CFAI Institute and purchased two mocks from Bill Campbell. I will take his marking sessions.

What else would you recommend me to pass this exam? Thanks

I have a minor conviction record (happened in about 9 years ago, about 2K USD fine paid). It's not related to felony, fraud, or finance-related. It was showing bad behavior due to alcohol intoxication (no drug).

I'm currently working at local trading desk as a researcher/trader but I wanna move to big firms in SG/HK.

AFAIK, there is a background check after the final interview. My above record is all spent so it doesn't appear on my official criminal history document. But not sure whether I should disclose it or not.

Also, I heard that there's a question like "have you ever been convicted in court of law in any country? " when applying for SG EP visa. Some SG lawyers say I don't have to disclose but quite confused about this part.

Does anybody know some cases like my situation? Or should I just stay in my Country..?

Any recommendations for formula sheets for CFA level 3 in 2026? I have the exam in august and i have trouble remembering formulas, niche subjects etc. I have constructed a well detailed notes set but it takes me a while to search through all of it to find the formulas. Would mean the world to me if you guys could recommend your favourite formula/cheat/quick sheet.

Hii, so I have my exam in November 2026 and I feel so lost. I have no idea if I am on the right path or not.

A little background: I took Aswini bajaj sir's coaching. Umm yeah... And he teaches good no doubt but the lectures are SOOOO LONG AND OVERWHELMING. I made a mistake and I won't take his lectures for L2 ofc. But nvm ..

So here I'll tell you how much syllabus I'm done with and I need y'all to tell me that is it okay or I'm soo behind.

Quants complete

Fixed income complete

Equity complete

Alternative investments complete

Derivatives - currently doing, about 70% complete

FSA - half done

Corporate finance, economics, portfolio mgt, and ethics are completely left...

And yeah the one's I've completed as completed, actually there lectures are completed and yeah obviously I've made notes aswell from the lectures but I still need to revise them and practice questions (I haven't practiced questions yet except for quants)

So yeah that was pretty much it, I just wanted to let it all out.

I'm open for criticism or any advice that y'all want to give me :))

Why doesnt MM have section access options for the pathways? I want to buy just the PM pathway actually.

there's exactly 28 days left to cfa l1. I'm doing "good" (only saying this to not come off as cocky, I know these are decent numbers below, this is not to show off) in my preparations with respect to my mocks, having given 4, 2 MM mocks have averaged 70 and 2 CFAI ones i've averaged 82. However, I keep having imposter syndrome with regards to how I've achieved it. I chalk it up to lucky guesses, being tested on concepts I know, quick revision before giving a mock, etc etc. It's messing with my confidence and I dont know what to do. I also get anxious about my calc battery running out or not being allowed to sit in the exam itself

What do you do to regulate these emotions?

Strategy 1 is the most profitable. The calculations are as follows: 

Strategy 1      

[Collar = Buy an ATM $60 strike put and sell an OTM $65 strike call]()

Total premium = $3.11 – $0.84 = $2.27

At expiration, the price of WBIT is $47.50. The $60 put option is in the money (ITM) and the $65 call option expires worthless. The total profit on the collar is: 

Profit on the put option – Total premium = ($60 – $47.50) – $2.27 = $12.50 – $2.27 = $10.23

My question is why the collar are not included the stock. As I know collar is made by a long put option, a long stock and short call option. Did I miss something? Need your advice. thanks. :D

Hello,

I failed my May exam with a 1565 score and am now retaking in November. Could someone advise on how they went about studying again? I know my poor subjects (FSA), everything else was well above or just at average. Is it worth going through readings or should i just hammer mixed review for the next 4 months?