Numerical Questions

[statghost]

Among the 7 books, which ones do you think are calculation intensive?

Investment Management for Insurers, Babbel & Fabozzi
Options Futures & Other Derivatives, Hull, (6th Edition)
The New Corporate Finance, Chew
Corporate Finance Theory, Megginson
Risk Management, Crouhy
Real Options, Trigeorgis
Games and Information, An Introduction to Game Theory, Rasmussen, Fourth Edition

[campbell]

Hull is definitely calculation intensive. I think it's most likely the most calculation intensive of all those texts.

[Car'a'carn]

Hull is definitely calculation intensive. I think it's most likely the most calculation intensive of all those texts.

Haven't seen Trigeorgis yet, but it probably deserves mentioning too.

OTOH if Course 6 Fabozzi texts are any indication, there hardly would be a formula in his book.

[jelizmanning]

I have the game theory book. I think it's going to definitely have calc questions (though I don't know how it compares to Hall). Also need to watch out for the Investment Guarantees study note. It will have calc questions in it, but there will be few samples to work with in the text itself.

[campbell]

As I'm not taking this exam, I didn't check which chapters are covered from Investment Guarantees. However, except for the intro chapter, is is also very quantitative book, like Hull.

[AggieAct02]

There were several computation questions out of the material from the Risk Management text on the APMV exam. This overlapped a lot with some chapters in Hull though, so the computation stuff may have come from there. I can't remember. That one was misleading because it didn't seem like a very computational reading.

[waha]

Sorry, I am a little confused with the thread structure, after I posted
in another thread, I realize that here might a better place to ask my questions.

As a newbie to the upper level exams, I have the following questions.

1) People say that you can take DP and CSP in any order, how true is it?
I had to take Exam C the last sitting, otherwise this sequencing thing
would not make a difference for me. I definitely will take DP this fall, but would like to have an idea if I need to put in extra time to cover the stuff that might be spilled over from CSP.

2) Seems that finance, ERM, and Investment all share the same syllabus,
how can we tell which part is more weighted for investment as opposed to ERM?

3) Is my understanding correct, that with Investment track, the counterpart would be APM (Advanced Portfolio management)?

BTW, I am not considering ERM track. Again, some of these questions might sound very rudimentary, but thank you for responding.

[campbell]

In reverse order:

3) Yes.

2) Finance/ERM and Investments actually overlap a little bit on the CSP exam as well. So don't be concerned about the naming of previous study notes, which may seem that the syllabus is heavily biased toward one of the 3 subjects.

1) It is certainly possible, but most likely having one test before the other will help you in understanding the material. The DP material seems to be more of a precursor to the CSP stuff, but some of the readings I had on 8V last fall, and I think the difficulty level to be on par with the APM readings.

In short, if anything, DP comes "before" CSP.

[waha]

That is very comforting to know that if anything, DP comes before CSP.
I still need some clarifications on the 2nd item.

When studying, should one cover the entire syllabus evenly? I would think that should not be the case.

Another question for you.

Sounds like JAM seminar is the one to go but with the possibility of not being available at all for the Fall sitting, which one would you recommend then?
Thanks again.

[campbell]

You do have to cover the syllabus pretty thoroughly, in that they can ask questions from anywhere in the syllabus. I'd say certain core concepts, like those found in Hull, are important to get down solid.

From my own experience, there are readings that are more likely to generate exam questions than others -- most specifically, it's very easy for them to come up with questions relating to textbook readings, because the textbooks generally are set up with questions and with the goal that someone may be tested on the material. Some of the more informal study notes would likely be at most a point or two amongst a multiple-part question.

[yanz]

I agree that you have to cover all the material and have it all down. In terms of subject matter, I took the Finance/ERM exam this spring, and it did not evenly cover Finance and ERM, though the idea is that it should. So any of the 3 topics on the DP exam are fair game, with the weighting among the 3 being ideally equal, but realistically, depends on who writes the questions and can, therefore, lean more heavily into any of the 3 areas.

[waha]

As I said, I am totally new to this. But if all 3 topics are weighted equally, then why there are 2 tracks (Finance/ERM and Investment)? I am lost here.
Are the two exams completely different? Are there any problems that appear
both on Finance/ERM and Investment? I checked out the latest CSP sitting and that does seem to be the case.

Further, if one covers the entire syllabus evenly, is it correct that one should be able to answer all the questions on the APMV and the AFE exams? assuming they have the same syllabus just like the DP situation. Am I off base here?

[yanz]

As I said, I am totally new to this. But if all 3 topics are weighted equally, then why there are 2 tracks (Finance/ERM and Investment)? I am lost here.
Are the two exams completely different? Are there any problems that appear
both on Finance/ERM and Investment? I checked out the latest CSP sitting and that does seem to be the case.

Further, if one covers the entire syllabus evenly, is it correct that one should be able to answer all the questions on the APMV and the AFE exams? assuming they have the same syllabus just like the DP situation. Am I off base here?

The CSP exams are different for Finance/ERM and APE. They have different syllabi (though there is some material overlap), different exam writers and graders, etc. So those exams will look different. The DP exam is one exam for both tracks, so it, presumably, covers some finance, some ERM, and some investments stuff. But it's one exam that all these people take. Does that help?

[waha]

What you said about CSP does make sense, since the exam problems are different for AFE and APMV. The fact of only one syllabus for the fall DP sitting probably meant there is only one exam. I was looking at the fall exam schedule and see both FET-FE and FEP-V and I automatically assume that there are two exams. Guess that I should not make that assumption.

I think that I am finally clear with all these now. Thanks.