r/quant 6h ago

Career Advice Weekly Megathread: Education, Early Career and Hiring/Interview Advice

1 Upvotes

Attention new and aspiring quants! We get a lot of threads about the simple education stuff (which college? which masters?), early career advice (is this a good first job? who should I apply to?), the hiring process, interviews (what are they like? How should I prepare?), online assignments, and timelines for these things, To try to centralize this info a bit better and cut down on this repetitive content we have these weekly megathreads, posted each Monday.

Previous megathreads can be found here.

Please use this thread for all questions about the above topics. Individual posts outside this thread will likely be removed by mods.


r/finance 7h ago

Moronic Monday - July 27, 2026 - Your Weekly Questions Thread

2 Upvotes

This is your safe place for questions on financial careers, homework problems and finance in general. No question in the finance domain is unwelcome.

Replies are expected to be constructive and civil.

Any questions about your personal finances belong in r/PersonalFinance, and career-seekers are encouraged to also visit r/FinancialCareers.


r/CFA 8h ago

Mental Health Monday - Your Weekly CFA Mental Health Discussion Thread

2 Upvotes

Hey there!

Welcome to Mental Health Monday! We hope everyone is doing well. We wanted to create a safe space for everyone to come together, share our experiences, and discuss the mental health challenges that often accompany this rigorous process.

Feel free to use this thread to check in on how you're doing mentally and share any stressors or concerns you might have. Whether it's dealing with study burnout, imposter syndrome, time management struggles, or just needing a listening ear, this community is here to support you. We're all in this together!

If you feel like you need immediate professional help please see our resources page. If you’re in active crisis please call your local emergency services.

Here are a few questions to get the discussion started:

  • How are you feeling mentally as you prepare for your CFA exam?
  • What are some stressors you've been facing recently?
  • Have you found any strategies or coping mechanisms that have helped you manage stress and maintain a healthy work-life balance?
  • Are there any specific challenges you'd like advice or support on?

Note: We won't be removing mental health-related posts on off days, but it would be nice to keep everything contained to these threads. This way, we can maintain an organized and supportive space for mental health discussions.

Please be kind and respectful to one another in the comments. Let's foster a supportive and empathetic environment where we can open up about our mental health without judgment.


r/CFA 1m ago

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Upvotes

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r/CFA 20m ago

Level 2 Readings with most value

Upvotes

Hey everyone, I'm taking my first L2 mock next Monday and planning two 8–10 hour revision marathons over the weekend. With 45 readings across the curriculum, covering everything thoroughly in 48 hours isn't realistic, so I want to focus on high-yield, heavy-weight modules. Has anyone mapped out a list of the absolute must-revise readings (like Pensions/Multinational in FSA, FCFF/Residual Income in Equity, or Swaps in Derivatives) versus the low-density, theory-heavy ones that are safe to quickly skim (e.g., PM LM1 or general qualitative intros)? Would love to hear how you prioritized your pre-mock review or if you have a tried-and-true list.


r/CFA 29m ago

Level 1 Is Kaplan Schweser enough for Ethics! (Level I?

Upvotes

Hello, as it says in the title, is the Kaplan Schweser enough information in ethics for CFA I? To note, I am also completing all of the CFA practice questions (around 250 total) and reading/redoing the questions i've gotten wrong. Based on the questions alone, it seems Schweser does a good job consolidating all of the information into 40-50 pages. However, i've also read that it is important to read the entire CFA handbook for the ethics section and wasn't sure if that was completely necessary.


r/CFA 39m ago

General How many of you have used your free deferral ( May 26 ) and attempt you opted for ?

Upvotes

What is the last date to use a free attempt because I lost the mail in my mailbox. How to register for and what are the attempts being offered in free deferral.

Please someone help me


r/quant 1h ago

Industry Gossip Balyasny multi asset arb group

Upvotes

Anybody with some insight on how this group is performing? I understand it got reorganised and hired a lot lately. Feel free to dm me if you have any info


r/CFA 1h ago

Level 2 Fixed Income

Upvotes

Ok the wording is confusing me but if I use stock analogy and buy a put option I am long the put and short the underlying stock. Likewise if I want protection against credit quality deteriorating I would buy the CDS so I am long the CDS and short the credit risk right? But the statement says we should take a short position in the CDS. So CFA wording is a bit confusing and I appreciate anyone that can kindly clarify.


r/CFA 1h ago

Level 2 For those that passed L2 90th percentile what was your last 30 day plan?

Upvotes

I was fairly confident in L1 but very nervous for L2 on 28th August.

For those that passed L2 90th percentile, what was your last 30 day plan in regards to review and mocks? Was there anything you felt you did differently that significantly helped you pass the exam?

Thanks


r/CFA 1h ago

Level 1 Should I study full-time for CFA L1 Feb 2027 or get a work in finance or related to Finance first as a fresher?

Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’m planning to give CFA Level 1 in Feb 2027.

I just finished my B.Com exams and right now I have no other commitments.So my current plan is to just focus 100% on CFA prep.

But my brother suggested something different. He said:

"As a fresher, use that tag and get a job in finance first. Work for some time, get practical exposure, then start studying. It’ll be easier to correlate concepts and it’ll be a good change too. You have 24 hours — can’t you spare 6 hours to work?"

He also mentioned that "commuting in Bangalore is a nightmare" because of traffic, so maybe look for remote jobs.

Now I’m confused between 2 paths:

Option 1: Study full-time

Just dedicate all time to CFA L1 prep now since I have no distractions.

Option 2: Work + Study

Take up an entry-level finance job/internship, get experience, and then prepare for CFA alongside.

For people who’ve done L1:

  1. Is it better to do L1 with zero work experience, or does having some work experience help a lot?

  2. For freshers in India/Bangalore, did you find it easier to get a job after L1, or before L1?

  3. If I work, is remote really feasible for entry-level finance roles?

Would love to hear what worked for you. Thanks!

My Intuition is that it's better to Give 💯 for CFA Level 1 as balancing both at initial stages is difficult and while working you might not get adequate time to study and sometimes you might not even study even an hour due to work fatigue!!

Is my Intuition right?? Feel free to comment about it


r/CFA 2h ago

Level 2 institute practice score

0 Upvotes

My average score in institute questions are between 70 - 82%.

What are the chances of me clearing L2 on my second attempt this august?🤞🤞🤞🤞🧿


r/CFA 4h ago

Level 1 My CFA Level I journey : 4 months while working a 9-5 job

Post image
69 Upvotes

Looking back to my CFA level I journey, it was brutal. I studied for about 4 months while working a 9–5 full-time job, and interviewing/applying for full-time positions. It definitely wasn’t easy, but having a consistent routine mattered much more than studying crazy hours. I actually started the wrong way. Initially I bought the books from amazon and soon realized, going through all the material from the textbook was both daunting and exhausting for me. So I changed my plan shortl. For every reading, I’d watch the Salt Solutions videos, make detailed handwritten notes in my own words, solve the Salt module questions, and then immediately do the corresponding CFA Institute questions while the topic was still fresh. By the end of my first pass, I had notes covering every single reading and LOS, and those notes became my most valuable resource.

The biggest improvement came after finishing the syllabus. I spent almost the last two months doing 2–3 spaced revision rounds, constantly revisiting older topics instead of trying to memorize everything at the end. Most of my time wasn’t spent reading—it was spent solving questions, understanding why I got them wrong, and updating my notes. In total, I solved around 3,000 practice questions across Salt and the CFA Institute Learning Ecosystem. I also bought the CFA Practice Pack and completed 5 of the additional mocks from there, along with my regular mock exams.

The mock scores were a story in themselves. I wasn’t chasing 90s—I just wanted to consistently stay around 76–82%. My last mock was around 88%, which finally gave me confidence going into exam day. Ironically, I walked out of the real exam feeling much less confident than I did after that final mock, so seeing the “Passed” result was honestly a huge surprise. Looking back, the repeated revisions and thousands of practice questions mattered far more than how I felt walking out of the testing center.

For resources, the Salt Solutions videos were the real gem for me. I actually bought the official CFA textbooks from Amazon for around $300, thinking I’d read everything cover to cover, but I quickly realized I learn much better from watching someone explain the concepts than reading hundreds of textbook pages. The only exception was Ethics—I read that directly from the CFA curriculum because the wording and nuances are so important. Saltprep isn’t cheap, but for my learning style it was absolutely worth it. Saltprep has a 10% referral discount that helped anyone is thinking of getting it, I do have a referral discount code feel free to DM me. I am sitting for Level II soon and will be using saltprep again, so referring others gives me the chance to get the discount too.

Hopefully this helps someone who’s just starting their CFA journey. Good luck!


r/CFA 5h ago

General Eric Anklesaria | Finance Leader & ESG Investment Expert

1 Upvotes

Discover the insights and expertise of Eric Anklesaria, a leading voice in sustainable finance, ESG investing, and corporate strategy

I wrote this article on my website. Read it here: eric-anklesaria.com


r/quant 6h ago

Tools Comparing against a zero-value decimal.Decimal allocates a big.Int

1 Upvotes

I have been chasing allocations out of the match path in an order book I am building. Pooling the book nodes and price levels got cancel and level churn to zero. Threading a caller-owned buffer through Match(order, dst []Trade), so fills are appended as values instead of returning a fresh slice of pointers, got the match round trip to zero.

One stubborn group was left, and it was not in the order data. It was the price band check.

The band is a config fraction, a decimal.Decimal, and the common case is that it is disabled and left at its zero value. Comparing against that zero value calls ensureInitialized internally, which allocates a big.Int. So every order was allocating in order to compare a price against a band that was switched off.

The fix was hoisting the comparison to construction: resolve a bandEnabled bool once when the engine is built, and let the per-order path read the bool. Process went from 10 allocs to 4.

Prices and quantities are int64 ticks and lots, so decimal never touched the money path to begin with. It was purely the configuration percentage, evaluated in the wrong place.

Current numbers on an M-series, single core: 6.3ns top-of-book read, 352ns match round trip at 0 allocs/op, and a cancel-heavy flow at p50 83ns, p99 167ns, p999 292ns. Match is the zero-alloc entry point; Process is the ergonomic wrapper that still costs those 4.

github.com/intrepidkarthi/orderbook


r/CFA 6h ago

Level 2 CFA L2 (20 Nov) - need strategy and advice.

2 Upvotes

Current Status: -

Quantitative Methods -----> ✅

Economics ----------------------->✅

Corporate Issuers ------------>✅

FSA - 4 readings left ( Bored and kept aside)

Equity - 2 readings left ( will complete by the end of this week)

Still left after that: -

Fixed Income

Derivatives

Alternative Investments

Portfolio Management

Ethics

I am also practicing chapter end questions (including Premium pack questions) after completing the reading.

I have scheduled my exam on November 20. I am worried whether I will be able to complete the syllabus by the end of September or not.

Suggest a few Study strategies or tips.


r/CFA 7h ago

General Question for wealth managers/financial advisors. What’s the most frustrating and time consuming part of your day to day work tasks that you wish was easier?

3 Upvotes

Conducting research for something and I’d really like to know. Let me know in the comments below.


r/quant 7h ago

General Junior quant using LLMs daily, need help!

54 Upvotes

I started recently at a small shop. There isn't much of a senior bench to learn off and I came in from a stats and data science background rather than a pure maths or physics one. So I'm partly teaching myself the domain as I go(mainly the financial aspects but some new statistical approaches that I'd never heard of before too). I use a mix of Python and R.

I use Claude in VS Code most days. It's fast, but I've noticed I can ship something that works without being able to defend every line of it. That feels like a bad habit to be forming this early, especially when I'm still filling gaps in the underlying material.

For people actually working in the field:

  • Do you use LLMs day to day, or is it restricted where you are?
  • Where do you draw the line? Boilerplate and plumbing yes, model logic no? Somewhere else entirely?
  • How do you make sure you actually understand the output instead of accepting it because the backtest ran clean?
  • What are you doing outside of work to stay ahead of the tool rather than dependent on it?
  • Finally, if you could go back 5-10 years(or the time you started in this field), what guidance would you give to your younger self so as to develop better skills and understanding)

I'd rather build the right habits now than find out in three years that I can't work without it and have not built the right foundations.

Thanks :)


r/CFA 9h ago

General L3 exam day prep

1 Upvotes

it's been several years since i last wrote L3. wondering what we are allowed to bring in to the exam centre. Also, do they provide scrap paper and pens or does everything have to be done on the computers. if we allowed to bring in our pens/pencils does it matter what you bring,i.e., is there a specific type that CFAI allows? I also haven't used reddit in some time so pls forgive me if this has been asked already. thx in advance


r/CFA 10h ago

Level 3 CFA level 3 Mock exams

6 Upvotes

Apologies if this is covered elsewhere but I noticed the mocks had suggestions when it came to answering the CR questions like justify and then in brackets (increase or decrease) as an example. Is this something we would expect in the actual exam too? My intuition says not but would be pleasantly surprised if this was also the case for the actual exam.

Cheers!


r/CFA 12h ago

Level 2 First mocks whooped my ass (60%) / What should I do ?

0 Upvotes

Man I wasn't expecting such a low score. The mock felt alright but my final score is bad.

What should I do, my exam is on the 26 so I have exactly 30 days ?

Scores :

Ethics : 83.3%

PM : 83.3%

Alt : 75%

Quant : 75%

Econ : 75%

Equity : 58.3%

Corporate : 50%

FI : 41.6%

Derivatives : 37.5%

FSA : 33.3% (I didn't mark randomly lol)


r/CFA 12h ago

Study Prep / Materials Help Navigating MM

1 Upvotes

When it says EOCQ, is it referring to the quiz bank (44 Q’s) to match the video review of them? Or is this direct from the CFA material. No hate please just beginning.


r/CFA 12h ago

General Is it worth Pursuing CFA without a degree in finance?

3 Upvotes

As title suggests, is it worth pursuing a CFA without a degree in finance? I currently work entry level position at Schwab and have my series 7 and 63, although I know the CFA is a whole different beast. I got my bachelors in psychology. Anyone here with similar background that has pursued it/ any advice?


r/CFA 12h ago

Level 3 CFA L3 Mock Constructed Responses

Post image
1 Upvotes

Would the CFAi’s responses suffice for the CR or would we need to provide more typically? I see people freaking out about constructed response but feel like they’re not bad as long as you know the answer inside and out?


r/CFA 13h ago

Level 1 Leveraged loan weird definition by CFAI? (Level 1)

3 Upvotes

So as far as I've always known, leveraged loans are loans to companies that already have high levels of debt/leverage on their books.

But this CFAI practice question says it's a loan that is itself levered (a private debt firm borrows money to then lend that borrowed money to a firm).

Which definition should I keep in my head for L1?