2014 Part II Published Materials

[Royden Pereira]

Could you let me know when would you be publishing the question bank on Gregory for Credit Risk

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

We already have a question bank on Gregory. Thursday I start a new sequence of Gregory questions (i.e., Tue to Thur), that will manifest as a revised PDF in several weeks, I'd estimate but I'm not getting specific. Thanks,

 

[Royden Pereira]

Thanks for the update... Just wanted to know would you be posting the videos for new version of Gregory before the May exam?

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Probably not, new Gregory probably waits until after ... I don't know, we'll see how much we can do, is my general answer to any of your future status update questions

 

[Royden Pereira]

Hope i didnt irk you in any way. Just wanted to know if we could expect videos for the new syllabus. I truly feel you guys at Bionic turtle are doing a tremendous job of contanstly updating material on FRM. Cheers!!

 

[1882]

Hi,

Can you please provide any information on whether you will be publishing study notes on the following readings and if so when.

41. Jonathan Golin and Philippe Delhaise, The Bank Credit Analysis Handbook (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2013).
43. René Stulz, Risk Management & Derivatives (Florence, KY: Thomson South-Western, 2002).
57. “Principles for Effective Data Aggregation and Risk Reporting,” (Basel Committee on Banking Supervision
70. Kevin R. Mirabile, Hedge Fund Investing: A Practical Approach to Understanding Investor Motivation, Manager
73. U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee Report on MF Global (through p. 75), November 2012.*
74. “JPMorgan Chase Whale Trades: A Case History of Derivatives Risks and Abuses—Executive Summary,” U.S. Senate
75. "Towards Better Reference Rate Practices: A Central Bank Perspective," Working Group Established by the BIS
76. “OTC Derivatives: A Comparative Analysis of Regulation in the United States, European Union, and Singapore.”
77. “A New Look at the Role of Sovereign Credit Default Swaps,” IMF Global Financial Stability Report, Chapter 2,
78. “Capital Planning at Large Bank Holding Companies: Supervisory Expectations and Range of Current Practice,”

Many thanks

 

[Nicole Seaman]

@1882,

We are still in the process up updating the study materials to coincide with the 2014 curriculum. We provide study notes for each topic and reading. We are unable to provide a specific date that they will be published, as there are many materials that need to be updated. Thank you for your patience during this time.

 

[FRMCAND]

Hi, in Readings for Regulatory Reference 2014 we have also the following:
Nadine Gatzert, Hannah Wesker, “A Comparative Assessment of Basel II/III and Solvency II,” Working Paper,
Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Version: October 2011.*
It seems that this is an old (from 2013) reading, but I did not find it on BT Study Planner.

Thank you in advance for your attention,

 

[inik]

David,
What is due to be published after "Reading 41: Credit Decision and Credit Analyst" study notes? I'm afraid the Publishing Calendar became inaccurate in early Feb. & its notation for P2 materials appears to map to the readings in only some of the cases.


About Credit Risk materials specifically, I noticed the following:

• 1. Golin No study notes posted
  • Is this "Reading 41: Credit Decision and Credit Analyst" being worked on right now

• 3. Stulz No study notes posted
  • I noticed that the questions were updated. Will the notes be updated as well? (From what I can tell, this material is unchanged from last year)

• 5. Gregory PQ — use study notes, or more coming?
  • Quite a rework of the notes -- thank you!!! The notes have extensive PQs at the end of the chapters. I remember reading in one of the posts that updated PQs for Gregory will also be coming. Is that still the case, or were they wrapped up into the study notes document?

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

1. Yes, I am working on new Golin (we have a draft) Study Notes
2. Yes, I am working on a new Stulz Notes (same old Chapter 18, just revised)
3. Gregory Notes will not be updated in after the May exam (2nd semester). However, we are currently in a sequence of fresh, additional Gregory, so Gregory PQ will be revised (expanded) after we finish them.

 

[PBHAMIDIPATI]

You mentioned Golin is almost done, would you also provide "Kevin R. Mirabile, Hedge Fund Investing" before the exam? When are you targeting to publish?

Thanks

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Golin is done (I just finished it this AM per my strikeout above; btw, what a mess of a text, not as bad as Stulz but it's hard to believe Golin is a 2nd edition, the organization is lame, some of the sentences would fail high school English. Terrible editing. Simple ideas obfuscated in long convoluted prose) ... I now give our Golin note back to Nicole, who will polish when she gets in Monday and she'll post it as soon as she can after that. Yes, Mirabile is on our radar: I am sourcing him for the 2 T8 global topic review questions next week (which I write this weekend). I don't want to give the target, it just creates more (stressful) communication loops for us. I like Mirabile, GARP finally found a decent hedge fund source

 

[PBHAMIDIPATI]

Thanks

FYI: I hear your frustration on candidates seeking constant status updates. I'm taking this exam with 2013 GARP curriculum (I've registered for Nov '13 and postponed it) and do not have the actual GARP materials for the 2014 updates and relying solely on your notes! So David, if a question pops up from Mirabile on the exam and I don't get it with my naturally limited intelligence/luck, it is all your fault for not providing the notes on time

 

[Juan B.]

Hi David, BT Team,

Would you recommend us, at this stage, to start looking at any of the current issues on our own? I am aware you get stressed by candidates requesting updates but with less than 3 weeks to go you can imagine how stressed we get by missing at least 10% of the curriculum. I would kindly request some precise feedback on these.

The fact that they will be published before the exam it is not really valid for any of us. We need to read these several times in the middle of the full material review and some of us with long working hours.

If you cannot make it well before the exam, it is a bit disappinting to find it out now, but please let us know in advance so we can go and prepare the current issues material on our own, all or any of them.

Thanks and I hope you understand our concerns. This is not an update in mid february or march because you are behind schedule on the calendar. We do need information.

Thanks.

Juan.

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Hi Juan

• Yes feel free to start looking at current issue on our own. They are all free @ http://www.garp.org/frm/study-center/study-materials/2014-frm-part-ii-online-readings.aspx so I don't think i'm stopping you
  
• I will remove some of this week's priorities in favor of completing these, so we will start publishing these no later than Friday. (it's unfortunate, I would rather not prioritize free readings with low/erratic testability but okay I give in)

 

[cdbsmith]

Hi Juan

• Yes feel free to start looking at current issue on our own. They are all free @ http://www.garp.org/frm/study-center/study-materials/2014-frm-part-ii-online-readings.aspx so I don't think i'm stopping you
  
• I will remove some of this week's priorities in favor of completing these, so we will publish these no later than Friday. (it's unfortunate, I would rather not prioritize free readings with low/erratic testability but okay I give in)

David,

As a paid member, I would say that I'd rather you focus on providing the material that we really need to know in order to pass the exam. Based on my experience with BT, I trust your judgement. As such, I prefer you not prioritize "Current Issues" material as it is pure reading that I can handle on my own especially since they are freely available via the GARP website. In order words, I do not need BT to help me read current issues as these readings are not complex at all. So, now you have two opposing views. 10% pure reading and nice-to-know stuff vs 90% complex formula-based concepts that all would-be FRM practitioners need to know to perform in their jobs. It's a no-brainer to me. Yourcall though.

Separately, I've been trying to print the part 2 formula sheet and am having a problem printing pages 73-111 (I could not attach the file because its too large). Apparently, there is a post script issue causing the error on pages 73-111. Can you take a look at it?

Thanks,

Charles

 

[Juan B.]

Thank you David for the information.

Every candidate has their own priorities. I am quite happy with the information provided so far in the BT website, materials and practice questions. I believe the non current issues material (the remaining 90% complex stuff) is very well covered. There are sufficient questions on the difficult material so I do not know what else can be done. I know there are some Golin or Hedge Funds material outstanding, but I guess these can be covered by us in a couple of evenings so I am not worried if they get published late.

My personal view, and perhaps other paid members, it that there are 300 pages to read under current issues, and althought it is an easy stuff, BT help us a lot summarizing these since a lot of the candidates main problem is the lack of time more than the complexity.

If I had known from day 1 that the current issues materials would be published the week before the exam or not published at all, that´s fine, you can start reading these weeks ago, but, now, it is not the time to read 300 pages, even thought they are not complex and specially taking into account, there will for sure be 8 questions about it.

Anyway, impossible to please everybody, so I guess more feedback from paid members will be welcome.

Thanks,

Juan

 

[Pflik]

David,

As a paid member, I would say that I'd rather you focus on providing the material that we really need to know in order to pass the exam. Based on my experience with BT, I trust your judgement. As such, I prefer you not prioritize "Current Issues" material as it is pure reading that I can handle on my own especially since they are freely available via the GARP website. In order words, I do not need BT to help me read current issues as these readings are not complex at all. So, now you have two opposing views. 10% pure reading and nice-to-know stuff vs 90% complex formula-based concepts that all would-be FRM practitioners need to know to perform in their jobs. It's a no-brainer to me. Yourcall though.

Separately, I've been trying to print the part 2 formula sheet and am having a problem printing pages 73-111 (I could not attach the file because its too large). Apparently, there is a post script issue causing the error on pages 73-111. Can you take a look at it?

Thanks,

Charles

I just want the material that helps me pass, as time gets nearer to the exam I'm less concerned about the stuff "practitioners need to know to perform their job" but then again, I'm pretty practical like that.

Just for my information. Is FRM part 2 overhauled? everything seems less thought out than for frm part 1... or maybe that's just my feeling. ( with that i actually mean the frm material. I'm well aware that BT is overhauling the readings for part 2).

 

[Alex_1]

Hi all, I tend to agree with @cdbsmith .

I don't know if this is of any help, but I have started weeks ago reading through some of the readings for P2.T9 (the so-called "Current Issues"), some seemed interesting to me, some not quite, anyhow, I tried to pick out the points/ideas which seemed to me the basic take-aways from the texts and I've written them in a word document (albeit in many cases it was just a mere "copy and paste" from the "Conclusion" sections or similar places in the texts). What I mean is it doesn't currently have the quality of the Study Notes provided by @David Harper CFA FRM CIPM , but it could save some people here the time that I took to skim through the texts (the JPMorgan Whale Trade text had over 300 pages...) and if anyone wants to adapt/expand the document - feel free. It's not really ready though, I planned to upload it in this thread/this forum at the beginning of next week - that is unless @David Harper CFA FRM CIPM or anyone here tends to disagree with this.
As I said, it's basically an attempt to boil the total of ~600 pages of all the current readings input by GARP with no intention of completeness/100% accuracy.

 

[cdbsmith]

I just want the material that helps me pass, as time gets nearer to the exam I'm less concerned about the stuff "practitioners need to know to perform their job" but then again, I'm pretty practical like that.

Just for my information. Is FRM part 2 overhauled? everything seems less thought out than for frm part 1... or maybe that's just my feeling. ( with that i actually mean the frm material. I'm well aware that BT is overhauling the readings for part 2).

Well, @Pfilf, if the FRM exam is done correctly, it should be based on what FRM candidates need to know. So, my statement was about both the exam AND real life for would-be FRM practitioners. Frankly, all of the material is potentially testable. So, if you are interested in passing the exam, you should read the actual GARP-assigned readings, note summarized notes. It is fools gold to just assume that you exam will just be based on the prep notes. There is always a chance that something on the exam is not covered in the prep material. So, again, if you want the only the material that will help you pass the exam, you SHOULD READ THE GARP-ASSIGNED READINGS as all of the testable material is included.

Anyone who pays for exam prep, must understand that they are getting prep material based on the prep provider's best guess about what may appear on the exam. So, naturally, some (perhaps, many) details are lost since we are using prep notes and not the actual reading material. So, for me, the biggest bang for my buck is to get help deciphering the more complex formula-based material, which are highly like to be tested on the exam. I think we can all agree that, given the 10% exam-weighting assigned to "Current Issues", we can potentially miss all of those questions and still pass the exam. So, if you fail, it won't just be because of current issues. But, if you are able to master the other 90% of exam-weighted material, you will have an excellent chance of passing the exam.