Hi, I hope you Part 1 takers are enjoying a brief break from studies!
The 2012 AIMS are not yet published, although we've seen the draft (and been given a chance to input). Wanted to share my thoughts (I pretty much agree with trabala's view)
Executive Summary: Little to no change to Part 1 (L1) with little impact on a study plan in terms of concepts to be reviewed. In my many years of association with the FRM, this is the least amount of year-over-year change to the L1 assignments that GARP has delivered.
... that's not a criticism from me. I am impressed that GARP has responded to feedback on the P1 AIMs, based on the draft I have seen (but cannot share), but these edits appear to be quality enhancements (corrections, tightening) that do not impact concepts. If you happen to read something elsewhere about meaningful changes to L1 (a tired selling tactic), sorry, it just ain't true where it matters.
(But, David, why should i buy your 2012 L1 product, if 2011 is still good, plus i can get free stolen copies on the internet? because my 2012 is going to be so much better since we can focus on a tighter program, less AIM-by-AIM and more concepts with use-case applications. Less concept change gives us more room to improve).
Selected details on four P1 topics:
T1. Foundations. Two deletions but concepts utterly UNCHANGED.
Amenc chapter 4 has narrowed to a section, but honestly, i think the whole chapter is still helpful as the exam continues to, ahem, over-represent CAPM.
Deleted:
T3. Markets & Products: UNCHANGED
Saunders on Foreign Exchange (FX) Risk should read Chapter 14 from 7th edition. But chapter is unchanged (except for one helpful image) from the 6th edition.
I guess T3 is all there is w.r.t. sovereign risk (hmmm .... good thing sovereign risk doesn't matter and isn't in the news much these days
). Tentatively, this look like an error to me, it looks to me like sovereign risk has been forgotten?!
T4. Valuation and Risk Models: generally UNCHANGED Just the one deletion on CCA Sovereign risk.
Deleted:
The 2012 AIMS are not yet published, although we've seen the draft (and been given a chance to input). Wanted to share my thoughts (I pretty much agree with trabala's view)
Executive Summary: Little to no change to Part 1 (L1) with little impact on a study plan in terms of concepts to be reviewed. In my many years of association with the FRM, this is the least amount of year-over-year change to the L1 assignments that GARP has delivered.
... that's not a criticism from me. I am impressed that GARP has responded to feedback on the P1 AIMs, based on the draft I have seen (but cannot share), but these edits appear to be quality enhancements (corrections, tightening) that do not impact concepts. If you happen to read something elsewhere about meaningful changes to L1 (a tired selling tactic), sorry, it just ain't true where it matters.
(But, David, why should i buy your 2012 L1 product, if 2011 is still good, plus i can get free stolen copies on the internet? because my 2012 is going to be so much better since we can focus on a tighter program, less AIM-by-AIM and more concepts with use-case applications. Less concept change gives us more room to improve).
Selected details on four P1 topics:
T1. Foundations. Two deletions but concepts utterly UNCHANGED.
Amenc chapter 4 has narrowed to a section, but honestly, i think the whole chapter is still helpful as the exam continues to, ahem, over-represent CAPM.
Deleted:
- Stulz Chapter 2, CAPM (investors) and risk management. I wanted both Chapters 2 and 3 deleted, because they are perennial sources of confusion. (Stulz is a great man, but we can now tally years of gripes and say politely that he is not the clearest writer on the planet). I'm glad one chapter was deleted, but alas, Chapter 3 builds on Chapter 2, so I'm not sure it's a "net savings" with regard to concepts.
- Elton's four (4) chapters on CAPM and APT. Based on the exam feedback I read, it appears the exam continues to like CAPM-based questions (e.g., Treynor) more than I do. Although it seems to me these readings still tilt to the theory, whereas the CAPM questions are more straightforward or vanilla
- Steve Allen's CASE STUDIES. Eight cases are assigned, BUT the challenge is that GARP will not test nearly all of them, yet they always tests at least one of them (see Hend's note, looks like Banker's Trust was tested last month). I would not underplay the cases, I would be ready for more case questions.
T3. Markets & Products: UNCHANGED
Saunders on Foreign Exchange (FX) Risk should read Chapter 14 from 7th edition. But chapter is unchanged (except for one helpful image) from the 6th edition.
I guess T3 is all there is w.r.t. sovereign risk (hmmm .... good thing sovereign risk doesn't matter and isn't in the news much these days
). Tentatively, this look like an error to me, it looks to me like sovereign risk has been forgotten?!T4. Valuation and Risk Models: generally UNCHANGED Just the one deletion on CCA Sovereign risk.
Deleted:
- Gray, Merton and Bodie's Contingent Claims Approach to Measuring and Managing Sovereign Risk (good riddance; it never made sense to look at CCA before getting introduced to the Merton model that it employs. That is, cart:horse :: CCA:merton)
- Hull's chapter on Operational risk: I still think this is oddly located here, but apparently GARP did test OpRisk BIA in P1(see exam note here re: "find the bank capital reserve based on basic indicator approach"), so it looks like P1 does need to be ready for a bit of OpRisk (regulatory, at least)
