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

I might have gotten it wrong on the actual exam if I hadn’t seen this type of question today.

I know I know, I should have done some mocks by now, but I only started studying in May when I was sure I would have 2-4 hours of childfree time each day. Doing the PM pathway, and I have relevant work experience to help me with 60% of the material.

I really need to pass this exam on the first go so that 1) I never have to do it again, and 2) avoid feeling guilty for spending time with LES and MM instead of my only child.

On the plus side, I am on mat leave so I do have the mental capacity (don't have to think about work/deal with work stress), on the MAJOR down side I am sleep deprived and my brain has physically shrunken (its a real thing for moms, look it up).

So now that I have three weeks left and wrapping up the last reading of PM, I'm definitely freaking the f out.

Any recommended strategies? Should I tackle more CFAI questions now (done about 30%) or save that for working on my weak topics?

I should dive straight into mocks, right?

Sincerely,

Sleepy and synaptically challenged

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

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

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?

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!

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.

Basically the title.

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

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'?

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! 😊

Anyone giving level 2 in nov in toronto? Maybe we can form a group? Let me know

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

Broo the fsa is frying my brain like wtf are those long ass vignettes 😭😭
Somebody else also facing the same ?
Current accuracy with 2.5 readings complete 63%

exactly one month to go for my cfa L1 exam and only completed FI quants ethics ai pm equity deriv
eco fsa ci is left
am i fucked up???
any tipsss????

I'm going to be scheduling for the Feb 2027 Level I exam. I’m seeing online that you get access to the CFAI exam prep materials once you make your payment for the exam. Is this true? Are the prep materials, especially the question bank & mock exams, good enough, or should I also buy the Kaplan prep materials?

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..?

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