Customer Reviews

CFA Fundamentals: The Schweser Study Guide to Getting Started

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is great if you are a beginner and have few knowledge in the CFA programm it covers alot of basic materials, but its not enough to pass the CFA exam you should go beyond the basics to pass the exam

This book offers a quick trip to the field. It is very reader friendly.
Great starter book.

Whether you're planning to prepare for the CFA certification course or just looking to brush-up on your finance, this book is for you. I bought this last year and while I was checking my Amazon account, I realized I didn't have a review on this excellent book yet. The contents of this book are intuitive and based on common sense. It would help of course, if you had some background on commerce, but just the same, the book integrates and synthesizes most basic principles in business and economics courses in college. A warning to the more advanced readers there however, you may be better-off looking for books specializing in certain fields of finance if you're done with the basics and the baby stepping.

It may be good for beginners to understand the concepts, but it is a waste of your money if you are taking the exam for 2008. Although some may consider not a big deal, one disturbing thing I found was that the formulas use a different notations/symbols/terminology than what you will find in CFA Institute books. So you are likely to go back and forth between notations and get confused. It is better to stick to CFA Institute notations as questions in the exam will use the terminology from their book.

You will also be surprised to know that this book does not cover 2008 CFA Learning Objectives.

Since my background is in electrical engineering, I bought this book to gain a basic finance background (CFA fundamentals) so I can feel better prepared to tackle the official level 1 CFA material. That was a year ago, and in retrospect, it was a costly mistake! Not only are many of the subjects in this book outdated, whole chapters are irrelevant to the current CFA curriculum (2009). In addition, the material is poorly presented and explained. It's expected that the different subject matters have a cursory treatment; however, a poor explanation, no matter how long/short, is still a poor explanation. After wasting 3 weeks on this book and at one point, doubting I would ever understand finance, I focused in on understanding the official CFA material - I had to start entirely from the beginning. Thankfully, and thanks to the CFA curriculum, I correctly learned the required level 1 material, expanded my understanding of the theory/mechanics/terminology used in the finance world, and I ended up passing. Save your money and time! Caveat Emptor! Don't buy this book!

This is an excellent review for anyone to start preparing for CFA Exam. It works with the study materials by Schweser. It is a quick review for fundamentals of CFA Level 1 examination. The test questions at the end of each section provide a very good test on the understanding of the section. I highly recommend this.