1) Fews were answered incorrectly because i don’t remember what I read..these are basically the accounting treating of different parts of FS with US.GAAP and IFRS.

This can improved by revising the International standards convergence and the relevant bits from different topics

2)The effect of various accounts (like inventory, liablities, off-balance-sheet liabilities , long-lived assets, capitalization of assets) on CFO, CFF and CFI, operating and net income, leverage ratios etc.

I have to browser through session 9 once again. I have to do it every day.

3)various revenues recognition methods and their effect of ratios and cash flows.

have to go though income statment topic once again.

Time is getting short and amount of reading material to be revised is mounting up.

cfa has been unfair to me in terms of time management or I should say i was not fair with my cfa plans…my advise to people preparing for cfa exams – Please have a good amount of time at your disposal so that you don’t miss participating in any important events of your life. Moreover, I am still not sure whether i can clear this exam.

Coming to the studies..i have read ethics, revised quant and re-read 70 % of FSA (Financial Statement Analysis). I am targeting to finish off my revision by 5th Nov and take sample tests and exams till the day of exam. Let see whether I can stick to the plan. After 5 holidays I am going back to office.Again, I am going to feel the time crunch. One thing I know for sure, my reading habits have changed over these 3 years of my job experience, concentration level has come down, retention power has come down…those are not good indicators for a student preparing for an exam.

I woke up with a bang. The apartment children blasted a cracker near my room.

Diwali has come and with it a lot of childhood memories.

In my childhood, Diwali has been always a special festival – no school; new dress; a lot of sweets; everyone at home and around smiling and wishing each other; houses, shops, roads and temples are decorated with lights; at day one can hear muffled sounds from the crackers exploded sporadically every now and then somewhere around, busy parents buying crackers at last moments at discount, we as children waiting for our parents to bring the crackers and eagerly estimating what share of it we will get. Everyone is happy. Everyone forgets his/her worries for that one day. Evening used be the finale.

Roads got covered with debris of exploded crackers. Night’s darkness was pierced by the lights at every house. When everything was over, at once the world plunged into the silence. This Silence on Diwali midnight was much deeper as compared to other nights. I, along with friends used to walk on the white roads to calculate how many crackers were exploded and how well the Diwali was enjoyed that year.

Job and moving to Bangalore changed everything. I should have gone back to my family at least for this day. Maybe I will count this as one of those sacrifices I have done for cramming for CFA exam.

Does Maharashtra means only Mumbai. Why these mns activists don’t think about other smaller cities and villages inside the state? Why don’t MNS win over people by their contributions in building the society? Raj is trying to get popular among his fellow Maharashtrians by just challenging the reach of nation’s law. Indian Media barring few newspapers are making a drama of the serious situation and helping Raj to achieve his objective. If Raj really thinks he is a true Marathi son then he should use his popularity and “tongue” to mobilize his party activists to help poor, run schools, and remove illiteracy in the state. And build a strong Mahatrashtra from inside. Beating north Indian candidates appearing Railway Recruitment Test (an all India test) is just like looking in the eyes of Mumbai police and telling them how incompetent they are in providing security to a common man – Sonia’s “aam admi”.

Mumbai is a metropolitan and that makes it a city of India. Every Indian has right to move to any part of the country and use his/her Fundamental Rights provided by Constitution of India. MNS campaign against non-marathi Indians is violation of law and an act of disrespect towards Indian Constitution.

Indians if ever divided on regional basis they are either called north indians or south indians and that too because of vast diversity in culture, regional literature, festivals and society. Although I don’t know in the first place why an Indian should be tagged as north Indian or south indian.

Are these mns activities want to divide indians further into north indians, south indians and maharastrians? MNS’s separatist and anti-national ideology will not help the image of Indian Integrity as one nation. MNS mindless acts will surely raise questions about the “cosmopolitan” status of Mumbai. Raj is getting infamous outside the state.

Well, on the lighter side of politics and keeping the pace with the comtemporary India a cartoon with a point-

Chandrayaan- I and MNS

When you are already in a hole, don’t dig it more…

thats exactly what happened yesterday and day before yesterday..somehow i am not able to stop my thoughts wandering everywhere except cfa ..a very bad level of concentration and indifference to the situation..I am not feeling the degree of urgency nor able to judge the amount of effort needed. I should look for something which can help me focus on my studies for next 40 days. I should look for it really quick.

If I cannot keep myself committed volunteerily, i don’t deserve to clear this exam.

so its all upto to me.

One more day at work. Today, I got some work to do in office. I have to finish few things by tomarrow end of day so that i can spend my next 5 days(starting from FRiday) away from office the way i like. I am taking leave on friday and next tuesday, and next monday is holiday here.

Where we were in my cfa struggle?

O yes, i had started my revision with Quantitative methods session- 2. This session contains very basic concepts about time value of money, Discounted Cash Flows(DCF) and its applications, Basic statistics(mean,mode,median,variance,standard deviation,skewness,kurtosis..blah blah blah) and finally probability which boasts probablistic viewpoint of statistics . The session was easy and I was able to complete it in 6 hrs along with a practise exam(25 Qs) on the session with Schweser Online course material. I think now i have good grasp of basics from this session. So I’m gaining some pace.

Next thing on my plate is session 3 which also covers Quantitative methods. This part is more advance than session 2 in terms of statistics concepts and it also got 2 chapters which i left in my first reading. So those 2 readings too have to be covered now.

As I said before, i am not quiting Gym because of cfa. After 1 month of my endeavour in gym my weight dropped from 85 Kgs to 79.9 kgs. The number 79.9 on the digital weighing machine brought a small piece of smile on my face. The number is just 100 gm less than 80 kgs but it boosted my enthusiam..maybe its just psychology of numbers. My target by the end of Nov would be to drop weight to 75 Kgs.

ok..back to cfa level 1…talk to you later.

So this section would be toughest of all because the answers depend on case-to-case basis and your chance of getting right is as good as how ethical(or how ethical your reasoning can pretend) you are in general

I would start revising other sections of cfa level 1 curriculum as planned and this time would be taking test for each session… honestly speaking i don’t remember a word of what i read in last 2 months ( for record- i started my preparation on 20th aug 2008, the extended 2nd deadline date for registering for cfa level 1) except some parts of fixed income derivatives and bonds.

the fight intensifies….

1) Mutual funds – Open Fund and Closed Fund , how their NAV is calculated and how they are traded.
2) ETFs or Exchange Traded Funds
3)Real Estate Investments and the valuations methods of real estate
4)Venture Capital and stages in VC
5)Hedge Funds, types of investment strategies in HFs
6)Distressed Securities or Closely Held Companies and their valuation methods
7)Commoditites

Every asset class has some characterstics which distinguishes from conventional asset classes like stocks, bonds etc and they have their own risk and reward features.

Now i have last session CFA Ethics to cram which i am planning to finish in 3 days and then revise for 15 days all the books (total 6 ) and take sample tests for last 30 days.

this is plan…and now i have to act on the plan.

I had a meeting at 10.30 am and had to make some preparations for that , so i had to go to office at 9.30am itself. I recently got promoted and team wanted a party in the evening..and i had also one more meeting in the evening. I have been going to gym since 2 weeks and didn’t want to break the regularity…in between my work and evening meeting i sneaked into the gym..did some 30 mins of exercise and got back to the meeting on time..once the meeting was over we went to a restrurant known as “Aranya” which serves good food and drinks, and it is less expensive too. I didn’t drink as i wanted to control my weight..but as the party went on i ate more than my normal dinner…I got back home very tired because of no rest all day and night. When i woke up this morning a sense of guilt about “what’s the point of doing exercise and wasting it by overeating” disturbed me ..but i am consoled that my lips didn’t touch any wine or drinks.

Today I am planning to finish alternative investments topic for cfa…need to get back to study now..

And final section is Ethics, final revision and sample tests. So you can see i am going to fail unless a miracle happens on the exam day.

I am struggling for time. Had to go to office at 10 morning as i have meetings ..come back home at 8 night. Going to Gym since last 2 weeks regularly and i don’t want to discontinue it even for cfa.

planning to stay awake till 3morning and finish the derivative part.