CFA or Chartered Financial Analyst is the certification that could be stated as your key to get into a career in the financial sector. In the following post, we would take a look at all the important information that you need to know about the CFA Course 2018.
CFA Course – Important Dates
The first thing that you need to do is know about is the CFA Level 1 Exam Date. We would be talking about the dates for the 2018 December session. In the following table we have given the details of the CFA Level 1 Exam Date
| Events | Dates |
| LEVEL I Registration Dates | December 2018 (August 22, 2018) June 2019 (October 10, 2018) |
| LEVEL II Registration Dates | June 2019 (October 10, 2018) |
| LEVEL III Registration Dates | June 2019 (October 10, 2018) |
| LEVEL I Exam Date | Date to be announced for December 2018 |
| LEVEL II Exam Date | Date to be announced for December 2018 |
| LEVEL III Exam Date | Date to be announced for December 2018 |
As you can see, the exact date for CFA Level 1 Results or for other levels are still not available. To get the latest updates on the CFA Result Date. Click on the link below:
CFA Course – Eligibility
Let us now take a look at the eligibility details for CFA Level 1 Exam. To appear for CFA 2018, you need to fulfill the following criteria
The CFA Course Eligibility is quite lenient. You just need to fulfill the following criteria:
- Have a bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree, or be in the final year of your bachelor’s degree at the time of registration, or have four years of qualified, professional work experience or a combination of work/college experience that totals four years
- Meet the professional conduct admission criteria
- Can take the exams in English
- Have a valid international travel passport
You can practically appear for CFA with almost any degree. However, graduates from the following streams stand to benefit the most in their career with the CFA Charter
- Current MBA students/MBA aspirants
- B Com / M Com students
- CA aspirants/ CA qualified professionals
- IT professionals
To get more details about the eligibility for CFA Level 1, click on the button below:
CFA Registration Process
Now, let us see how you can register for CFA Level 1 exam. The following are the steps that you need to go through to get CFA Level 1.
STEP 1: Choose the Exam
The first thing that you need to do is choose the exam. If you haven’t appeared for the exam before, you would need to go for CFA Level 1 Registration. If you have, then you need to go Level 2 Registration.
STEP 2: Address Details
Next, you would need to fill in your address details. You need to choose your country, region, and your complete address. You need to save the information that you need to enter and proceed to the next stage.
STEP 3: Choice of Exam Centre
CFA Exam is conducted in the following centres across the country.
- Ahmedabad
- Bangalore
- Chennai
- Hyderabad
- Kolkata
- Mumbai
- New Delhi
- Pune
You would get to choose one of the exam centres when going through CFA Exam Registration. The exact location and address of the exam centre would be given to you around 1 month before the exam. You can change the exam centre before the last date for CFA Registration.
STEP 4: Filling Your International Passport Details
You would need to carry your international passport to the CFA Exam Centre. You need to fill in your passport details in your CFA Registration. You need to make sure that you enter the right details as they would be verified on the date of the exam at the centre.
STEP 5: Filling in Other Important Information
After you have done that, you need to fill in other important information. You would need to fill in the following details:
- Educational details
- Employment status
- Professional conduct history
- Choice of format for exam preparation support
- Choosing the local providers for exam preparation support
STEP 6: Paying the CFA Registration Fee
You would need to pay your CFA Registration Fee. If you have never appeared for the exam before, you need to pay the Program Enrollment Fee. This is a one-time fee to enter the series of CFA exams. The fee is $450 and is paid when you register for your first CFA Level 1 Registration. You can consider this your application fee since you have to pay this in order to apply for the CFA exam.
Next you need to pay the CFA Level 1 the exam. You would need to pay this, everytime you appear for the exam:
| CFA Exam Registration | CFA Exam Fees and Costs | Sign up Deadline |
| Early Registration | $650 | 8 – 9 months before exam |
| Standard Registration | $930 | 3 –4 months before exam |
| Late Registration | $1,380 | < 3 months before exam |
For complete details on the additional CFA Fees, click on the link below:
Final Step: Confirmation
The last step of the process is reviewing the information and clicking on ‘Submit’. After that, you would get the confirmation. After a few days, you would receive your CFA Admit Card.
To get more details about the CFA Registration, click on the link below:
CFA Admit Card
You need to download your CFA Admit Card to appear for CFA Level 1. To download your CFA Admit Card, you need to do the following.
Instructions to Download CFA Exam Ticket:
You need to follow these simple steps to download your CFA Exam Ticket
STEP 1: Click on the link given here.
STEP 2: You would be redirected to a page that would look like this
STEP 3: Enter your registered email ID and Password, which you entered while filling up your application form.
STEP 4: You would get your CFA Admit Card. Check that the details mentioned on the ticket are correct. Once you are satisfied, click on ‘Download’
To get more information on your CFA Admit Card, click on the link below:
CFA Exam Pattern
The following table gives the details of the CFA Exam Pattern for all levels
| CFA EXAM | ||||||
| Level I | Level II | Level III | ||||
| Morning | Evening | Morning | Evening | Morning | Evening | |
| No of Questions | 120 | 120 | 60 | 60 | 12 | 10 |
| Type | MCQ | MCQ | 10 Set of Items | 10 set of Items | Essay | Set of Items |
| Duration | 6 Hours | 6 Hours | 6 Hours | |||
| Passing Score | 70%* | Above 70%* | 50-70%* Approx. | |||
| Passing Rates | 42%* | 46%* | 53%* | |||
Note: * These numbers vary every year. This is just an approximation based on the historical data.
Details of the Exam Pattern
Let us first take a look at the CFA Level 1 Exam Pattern. This is the first examination that students will have to appear for. In level one, questions would be asked about the concepts and tools that are applied to investment management and valuation.
The CFA Level 1 exam is conducted in two sessions. Each of the sessions is 3 hours long. You would be required to appear for both the sessions. The CFA Level 1 Paper Pattern of 240 multiple-choice questions (MCQ) in two sessions of 120 questions each.
To get the details about CFA Level 1 Exam Pattern and the exam pattern for other levels, lick on the link below:
CFA Syllabus
The next thing that you need to know about is the CFA Level 1 Syllabus. Here we would look at the CFA Level 1 subjects that you need to prepare for for CFA Level 1
| Topic | Percentage of marks | Sub-topic |
| Financial reporting analysis | 20 | Financial reporting mechanics & Standards |
| Understanding income statements | ||
| Understanding balance sheet | ||
| Ethics | 15 | Standards of professional conduct |
| Global Investment Performance standard | ||
| Quantitative analysis | 12 | Time value of money |
| Discounted cash flow applications | ||
| Statistical concepts and market returns | ||
| Fixed income analysis | 10 | Fixed income securities |
| Fixed income markets | ||
| Introduction to fixed income valuation | ||
| Equity Investment | 10 | Market organization and structure |
| Security market indices | ||
| Market efficiency | ||
| Economics | 10 | Demand & supply analysis |
| The Firm & market structures | ||
| Aggregate output, Prices, Economic growth | ||
| Corporate finance | 7 | Capital budgeting |
| Cost of capital | ||
| Portfolio management and wealth planning | 7 | Portfolio management |
| Basics of portfolio planning and construction | ||
| Derivatives | 5 | Derivatives market and instruments |
| Basics of derivative pricing and valuation | ||
| Alternative investment | 4 | Mutual funds |
| Real Estate | ||
| Total | 100 |
To know about the topics in the CFA Level 1 Syllabus in detail, click on the link below:
CFA Results
Lets see how you can download your CFA Level 1 Results.
You’ll get your results to your e-mail. Just wait about 50 days if you took your level 1 or level 2 exam and add two more weeks for level 3 results. It is expected that the CFA Level 1 Results for December 2018 would be available at the end of January. You would get an e-mail message will tell you whether you PASSED or FAILED. Also, you will learn about your performance for given topics relative to other exam takers. You can login to your CFA Institute account for more details
Understanding the MPS
The MPS or the Minimum Passing Score is the minimum marks that you need to score to pass the exam. In CFA Level 1 as well as other levels, you would have an MPS for each of the subjects. The email for the CFA Result that you would get would tell you whether you have cleared the CFA MPS or not. If you have scored higher than the MPS, you would have passed the CFA Level 1.
Different levels would have different MPS, even if the subjects are same. For example, the CFA Level 3 Result CFA would be different from the MPS for CFA Level 2 result. The CFA Institute doesn’t release the MPS. You would only know that that you have cleared the MPS, only if you have passed the exam.
These were the details of the CFA Level 1 Exam. To get information on the other levels, click on the link below:
