FRM 2009 Study Guide & AIMS

[liewpw05]

Does anyone know when the FRM 2009 Study Guide ,AIMS, Practice Question 2009 will be available? I have registered for the exam but unable to access any of the above mentioned materials. Emails to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) has not been replied.


Thank you

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Peggy -

Study Guide is ready, so hopefully tomorrow (Friday). It sounds like AIMS will be at least one month (early April is their goal but I'd figure mid-April). Unsure on rest...Thanks, David

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

FYI, GARP today published Study Guide.
I posted my impressions (although with link to Guide) here.

David

 

[sdoshi004]

David

I saw your post above on "my impressions". You have recommended some readings from the text. However, I want know whether you are going to come out with comprehensive notes of Bionic turtle which can help us if we skip the above suggested readings. I recollect that in 2008 you had mentioned in some post that you have a target for producing some comprehensive note which can be a substitue for the core readings and other recommended text books.

Is this achievable in 2009?

Please pardon me for asking such dumb question but was looking for one comprehensive notes which would help me to set the targets and focus on the material.

Would appreciate your reply

Thanks

Sumit

 

[liewpw05]

Hi David,

Thanks so much for posting the 2009 FRM Guide with highlights in yellow for new core readings compared with 2008 Study Guide.
It was a great help. I would like to add the following which are also new after comparing the two study guides (pls let me know whether you agree with me)

9. Philippe Jorion, Value at Risk Chapter 12. Monte Carlo Methods
19. Linda Ellen et al, Understanding Market, Credit and Oeprational Risk Chapter 3.Putting Var to Work
42. Studies on credit risk concentration ....

Thanks

Peggy

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Sumit,

After de-briefing with several previous customers, I decided *not* to attempt a notes version which can be a substitute for the core readings. I will publish notes, but I will still recommend the core readings. There are two reasons plus an incidental benefit

1. My primary goal is to achieve the highest pass rates and customer satisfaction (which I have frankly done last year, by a noticeable margin). Candidates/customers who want to avoid entirely the core readings seem to have lower pass rates. I generally am not trying to deliver the message that "i have a shortcut for you" because I do not believe it myself. Rather, I am generally in the business of helping candidates overcome a very tough hurdle. If i have to give up a few (or many) customers who only want shortcuts for the sake of a better core audience, I am willing to do that because I have a long term view.

2. Based on feedbacks and de-briefs from last year (which again was very successful for my customers overall, I can't but mention I am the only provider with an unmoderated forum willing to let the results, bare naked, speak for themselves), I want to prioritize the video tutorials and produce more, higher-quality questions. So, my hired help (this year) is specifically to generate higher quality and more frequent practice questions; I believe practice questions deserves more of our resources. I fully realize that a comprehensive notes set is more "visible" than creating fresh, relevant practice questions, but my priorities (i.e., where i have to devote limited resources among: videos, notes, spreadsheets, practice questions), which are less about product numbers and more about the feedback customers leave on the unmoderated forum, make this choice.

3. The incidental benefit is: there is little economic motive to invest in massive notes to "replace" the assignment. The PDFs are immediately copied and either (i) re-sold by pirates or (ii) nowadays shared on a P2P network. If my business was only PDF notes, to tell you truth, I would shut down immediately because the thiefs ruined this business. Okay, but that is not the motive, that is just incidental.

Thanks, David

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Hi Peggy,

Yes, I do totally agree with you. All three are "new" from FRM 2008 but (the reason I missed these, having too confidently tagged them from memory) is that they *did* appear on the FRM 2007. So these three are among those that have been re-introduced into the cirriculum. So you are correct I and I have amended the PDF accordingly!

(It is interesting because this was among my feedback to GARP: I said that last year's omitted too many foundational readings, like the Monte Carlo was barely mentioned in the Wilmott, which appears to have been dropped. So, it feels to me like they incorporated this feedback by re-introducing several readings that appeared *before* 2008)....thanks again,

David

 

[David Harper CFA FRM]

Peggy,

I just went thru the docs and, technically, there are even three more: Chapters 1,2, and 4 of John Hull are added in 2009.

And I collected the "dropped readings:"

Wilmott Chapter 22, Appendix A (it's a good drop, wasn't helping)
Tuckman Ch 4 (might be a mistake, going to write GARP)
Jorion Ch 10 (VaR Methods) (not sure why?)
Stulz 4,8,15 (fantastic)
Saunders Ch 11: Individual Loan Risk
de Servigny Ch 2: Ratings (replaced by Altman)
Ashish on Counterparty (good drop)
de Servigny 6 & 7 Credit Portfolio Models
Boecker Operational VaR (good drop)
Culp 17 - liquidity (good drop due to errors)
Jaeger Chapter 9

I recommended several of these drops. But they added many more readings than they dropped. Yikes! In my opinion, the primary implication of the new format appears to be: the full exam contains even more readings and is even bigger. It's just sinking in how much larger this could be in total...David

David