CFA Subjects

Introduction To CFA Subjects

CFA (Charted Finance Analyst) is the course offered by the USA as a post-graduation degree program in the field of finance, investment, economics, and management. CFA exam is held twice every year and it consists of 3 levels. Candidates need to clear all 3 levels to get the CFA degree. The CFA curriculum has 10 core subjects on finance, economics, ethics, investments, portfolio management, etc. and it will be common for all 3 levels. The only difference is that the exam pattern will change and the difficulty of the exam increases with level.

Various CFA Subjects

The 10 core subjects of CFA exams are as follows:

1. Quantitative Methods

Time value of money	Statistical	Probability and distributions
Sampling and estimation	Hypothesis testing	Regression
Organizing, visualizing, describing data

2 Economics

Demand and supply	Aggregate output, prices	Economic growth
Monetary and fiscal policy	Understanding business cycles	Currency exchange rates

3. Ethical And Professional Standards

Code of ethics	Standard of professional conduct	GIPS and it’s standards
Guidance for standards 1 and 2	Ethics and trust in the investment profession

4. Derivatives

CDOs	options	Swaps
Forwards	Futures and options	Mortgage based securities

5. Financial Statement Analysis

Overview	Financial reporting mechanics and standards	Long-lived assets
Inventories	Income taxes	Income and balance sheet
Long term liabilities	Cashflow statement

6. Equity Investments

Market efficiency	Market organization and structure	Overview of equity securities
Industry and company analysis	Security market indices

7. Corporate Issuers

Measure of leverage	The behavioral biases of individuals
Capital structure	Capital – uses, sources and cost

8. Portfolio Management And Wealth Planning

Introduction	Risks and returns	Portfolio planning and construction
Behavioral biases of individuals	Risk management

9. Fixed Income

Fixed income securities	Fixed income markets	Fixed income valuation
Asset-backed securities	Fixed-income risk and return	Credit analysis

10. Alternative Investments

Subject Weightage

The following table gives the weightage given for each subject in all 3 levels:

Subjects	CFA Level 1 In %	CFA Level 2 In %	CFA Level 3 In %
Ethical and professional Standards	15-20	10-15	10-15
Quantitative methods	8-12	5-10	N/A
Economics	8-12	5-10	5-10
Financial statement analysis	13-17	10-15	N/A
Corporate issuers	8-12	5-10	N/A
Equity investments	10-12	10-15	10-15
Fixed income	10-12	10-15	15-20
Derivatives	5-8	5-10	5-10
Alternative investments	5-8	5-10	5-10
Portfolio management and wealth planning	5-8	10-15	35-40

• Ethical and professional standards and financial statement analysis have the highest weightage in the Level 1 exam. Thus, it is recommended to give more importance to these subjects.
• Quantitative analysis, economics, equity, fixed income, and corporate issues have relatively high weightage, so give second priority to these subjects.
• Give equal importance to all subjects in CFA level 2, however, provide priority to high weightage subjects like the financial statement, ethics, portfolio management, fixed income.
• In CFA level 3, quantitative methods, financial statement analysis, corporate issuers do not have any weightage and can ignore it.
• Portfolio management has the highest weightage and thus recommended to give priority to this.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to CFA Subjects. Here we discuss the introduction, various CFA subjects and subject weightage for better understanding. You can also go through our other suggested articles to learn more –

1. CFA Salary
2. CFA Program
3. CFA Level 3
4. CFA Requirements