CFA Level II

After passing Level 1 of the CFA at the December 2010 writing, I decided to not attempt the 2011 June exam....new job, new in Copenhagen....too many changes to also be worrying about studying. probably a good choice...i was absolutely drained after Level 1 and think it took me a couple of months at least to recover.

So early last fall, I signed up for writing the June 2012 Level II exam. These are my general thoughts on the exam and my preparation....

• I had the books delivered in early September but really only started looking at them in mid November. I had really enjoyed the derivatives section in level 1 so thought i would start with that. Likely a dumb thing...after a few chapters of some review and some new parts, i quickly became overwhelmed with the new material and decided I had to go back and start at the very beginning....starting at chapter 56 out of 64 chapters was likely a stupid thing.
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• December: many christmas parties, gatherings, shopping....my books were not opened again.
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• January: I started studying seriously. All weekends, at least 8 hours a day and at least 2-3 hours on weekdays. Maybe one night off a week.  The other cool thing to happen in January was that my work submitted a team to participate in the Rotterdam marathon in April. Of course I had been disappointed that i had not managed to run the Berlin marathon the previous year, so I signed up. I figured that for four months i would focus on two things: running and CFA. And then after the marathon i would spend the final six weeks focusing on CFA. 
• Running: I ran a 21 km race in Kalunborg in early January, 2 hours and 6 minutes i think? road to marathon looks good.
• CFA - managed to start on ethics and get bored as per usual (last time i left ethics until the very end. I wanted it to be fresh at the exam date, decided to do the same). I started on the Quantitative section and then Economics. I have an MA in econ so felt those two sections would be straight review and pretty easy to breeze through. I hit a wall when i got to the chapters on exchange rates....found that stuff pretty tough.

•  February: Studying going ok. We had a couple of work events at the start of the month: hockey and dinner and then a bowling and dinner night. Both nights I had a few drinks and both following days were not as productive as I had hoped. I also went to Canada for a week. I took the book on Corportate finance with me but did not open it. For some reason i felt better just having it with me....
• Running: I ran a 21 km race in Ottawa, the Winterman Half marathon in just over two hours. At least I am improving somewhere.
• Studying: this month was not as good as i had hoped. I cannot find my calendar for study calendar for February, but I know that on Feb 26 I was only on Chapter 31/64...

• March - I made a very detailed calendar of a running and studying plan. Running 5 days a week, spinning 2 times a week and then a circuit training class on Friday mornings when I could fit it in. For studying, my plan was to have covered all of the material by April 4 so I could spend the Danish Easter break (which is a lovely set of 5 days off) reviewing all the material and then writing my first practice final exam on the 5th day off. Of course i did not managed to get through all the material by the April 4. I got hung up on some of the sections in Derivatives, as well the fixed income chapters - while i found them to be some of the lesser challenging ones - were just compiled with lots and lots of info!
• Running: ran 21km Pig run in CPH, 1 hour and 58 minutes....cool.
• Studying: this was a better month for studying, I am starting to get scared.

• April: Although I had not finished all the material by my deadline of April 4, I decided i would still spend the Easter weekend reviewing all the material I had covered to date and practicing the end of chapter questions. I had not covered chapters 56 - 64 or any of the ethics chapters at this time. I figured this was ok....i could slowly over the next month review while i took in some of the more complicated info in these chapters (or so i found it). So i had a really big push for the CFA over the Easter weekend. This was also the weekend before the Rotterdam marathon too, so not too much running was expected. I tried to maintain the momentum over the next week and left for Rotterdam on Friday April 13. Took about 1 week off i think in April to participate in the marathon, and then got back to the grind.
• Running: Marathon completed in 4 hours and 16 minutes. Exactly about the time i expected which was great.
• CFA studying: by the end of April i was well on my way to having gone through most of the material for a second time. Still no review of ethics, still only into my first covering of portfolio management and derivatives. And the chapter on hedge funds - UGH! I left that one too.

• May: now the focus was 100% on CFA, no more running. There was a quick work trip to Stockholm at the start of the month to see Denmark play Sweden at the IIHF world hockey tournament....as well as a cold, but i did drop the running entirely. This is when my back started to hurt. I had been studying in the same chair, using the same table and same position for months and months with no issues....but as soon as the running stopped, the pain started. This made studying for the long intervals over the weekend days very long. I had to take more breaks. The other great thing that started in May was my vacation leave from work. I had started at my job the previous January but did not get full vacation until May the following year. I decided it was best for me to take a week of holidays staggered over the month. Denmark is also luckily endowed with 3 civic holidays in May - perfect timing for taking days to study for the CFA. In all I had 8 days off of work in May, sometimes I would take a half day and study in the mornings and work the afternoons. Sometimes I would take the whole day. By the end of the month I was just so beat down. I had gone over most of the material 3 times, with ethics i focused my efforts on the chapters that differed from level 1. I only developed my trick for exchange rates the day before the exam at noon...and after that I was done, could not study anymore. My biggest regret for this month was only starting to go through the CFA practice exams the week before the exam. My 'May' plan was to write one the first week and write the other two weeks later....i never felt ready at those times.

• Exam Day: I spent the night in the hotel where the exam was being written, Radisson Blue in Copenhagen. Great hotel, expensive, and breakfast not included. I got there in the early evening, worked on some practice exam questions, and had some wine. I ordered room service for the next morning - best thing ever! To have a huge bowl of bacon come to your door the morning of the CFA was well worth it. ;) I wrote the Level 1 exam in London, in a room with what seemed like thousands of other candidates writing. Writing in Copenhagen was a far more cozy experience. I think there may have been 200 - 300 candidates in the room which was nice. And at the break, we walked out to the lobby and there was lunch waiting for us! What a nice thing to have for you in between the morning and afternoon sessions. My official thoughts on the exam were:
• I just had enough time. In level 1, especially the afternoon session, i finished after about 2 hours. For both the morning and afternoon sessions of level II, I just finished in time to have 10 minutes to review. I hate reviewing though.
• I found the derivatives section very challenging. Wish I had spent more time there.
• Special thanks to a friend in canada writing level III this year....we had been talking about the rhymes he uses to remember certain things, and one of them really came through to me in the exam. Props to him, the bond traders and the housewives!
• I found level II a lot more challenging than Level 1. Level 1 I was able to remember all the formulas, not for level 2. I just ran out of studying time...

All in all in worked out well for me. I did manage to pass CFA Level II on my first attempt even though I really did not have a good feeling coming out of it.

<50% in the Derivatives Section
>50% and <70% in Ethics, Quantitative, Corporate Finance, Economics, Financial Analysis
>70% in  Alternative Investments, Fixed Income, Equities, Portfolio Management

No idea how many hours I spent studying. I think this is a difficult measure of studying to assess because all hours of studying differ in quality. I know it was a lot though. And i think if it is really something that you want, and you give it 100%, you can pass it.

Danish Midsummer - Sankthans

In Canada, we all look forward to Canada Day (July 1). It represents the start of summer, and for me a day of eating poutine and eggs for breakfast, drinking strawberry margaritas and - if still awake at 9pm - watching the fireworks. It also represents the start of at least one holiday a month leading up to Christmas!!! (August long,  Labour Day, Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day, CHRISTMAS).

In Denmark it is kinda the opposite - all the holidays of the year are officially over now until Christmas. The last one was at the start of June, so I guess you can say that the midsummer festival here (which is not a holiday) represents the end of the holiday season.

Side note - midsummer in Sweden is a holiday.

Back to Denmark for now and a short discussion on the midsummer holiday called SanktHans. Instead of me trying to explain what the holiday is, i will start with a short description from the ever trustworthy wikipedia -

In Denmark, the solstitial celebration is called Sankt Hans aften ("St. John's Eve"). It was an official holiday until 1770, and in accordance with the Danish tradition of celebrating a holiday on the evening before the actual day, it takes place on the evening of 23 June. It is the day where the medieval wise men and women (the doctors of that time) would gather special herbs that they needed for the rest of the year to cure people.

It has been celebrated since the times of the Vikings by visiting healing water wells and making a large bonfire to ward away evil spirits. Today the water well tradition is gone. Bonfires on the beach, speeches, picnics and songs are traditional, although bonfires are built in many other places where beaches may not be close by (i.e. on the shores of lakes and other waterways, parks, etc.) In the 1920s a tradition of putting a witch made of straw and cloth (probably made by the elder women of the family^{[citation needed]}) on the bonfire emerged as a remembrance of the church's witch burnings from 1540 to 1693^{[citation needed]}. This burning sends the "witch" away to Bloksbjerg, the Brocken mountain in the Harz region of Germany where the great witch gathering was thought to be held on this day. Some Danes regard the relatively new symbolic witch burning as inappropriate.^[7][8]

In 1885 Holger Drachmann wrote a midsommervise (Midsummer hymn) called "Vi elsker vort land..." ("We Love Our Country") that is sung with a melody composed by P.E. Lange-Müller at every bonfire on this evening.

The points I really like from this description are as follows:

1. It was an official holiday until 1770 (lol - Canada was not a country then....no even close!). I wonder what made them decide in 1770 to declare the day no longer a holiday.

2. What i take from the celebration is that you gather around a big bonfire, place a straw witch on the bonfire and watch her burn while singing songs. But whenever i think to myself "What an off tradition of celebrating the burning of women"....i think think of the funny North American Tradition of waiting on February 2 to see a groundhog emerge from its hole to determine if we will get 6 more weeks of winter. Both are quite kooky.

3. Yes, some Danes i have talked to do regard the witch burning as inappropriate. I was asking my co-workers how they wold all be celebrating the day to see what they would say....including my boss who i asked if they would be attending a witch burning or hosting their own burning at home. He told me they would be hosting their own burning at home because his son really wanted to make a witch to burn (not sure if either of us were serious in this conversation.....but great answer).

Last year on Sankt Hans day, we went to the Kongens Nytorv area to watch the burning. There with good friends, we drank many beers and watched the witch burn away into the night.

                                         Witch - pre-burning (notice all the people watching)

       Witch - post burning (notice the young child taking photos)

This year we decided to attend a different location - the Frederiskberg Garden. We arrived very early (5pm) to get a good spot for the burning and were surprised to see that we were among the first to arrive (not so surprised 15 minutes later when the rain came). A short interlude at a friends house where we have our cheese and wine picnic inside and then back to garden. We tried out best to sing the official song (i personally think my danish is a little better when i am drunk) and then cheered with everyone as the witch went up in flames. It was really a nice time - great to see so many people get together and celebrate summer - even if the main thing I (as a Canadian) get out of it is that we are burning a witch.

 Us with our Rose Port at the burning

A view of the witch on the bonfire from our amazing pre-rain

spot....the rain came soon after. The witch still burned quite well 

at 10pm despite the rain....i wonder how much lighter fluid they used.

Danish McDonalds

I am not one that regularly attends McDonalds, but on the few occasions I do go, i tend to enjoy it. I remember in high school driving in old red to the nearest Mcdonalds to buy the nugget and french fries toonie deal, and driving between Vancouver and Calgary, stopping at McDonalds first thing in the morning to buy egg mcmuffins for the famous breakfast sandwich comparison (i like MdcDonalds the best, i think Ben may prefer Starbucks or Tim Hortons...)

That said, there are McDonalds in Denmark. And funnily enough, since we have moved to the suburbs, to a community called Søborg, I now live within a 2 minute walk to a McDonalds. I have though only been to the local McDonalds a handful of times - they do not offer my favourite item, the egg mcmuffin, on the menu. They still open at 9am in the morning, at which time you are welcome to buy a burger, etc. So, i have gone for chicken mcnuggets once and a happy meal another time...that is all.

So why the blog post today on McDonalds? I just ran 16km this morning - longest post CFA II run en route to the Berlin marathon at the end of September. 16km is nothing compared to what I was running before the Rotterdam marathon, but I was still feeling pretty proud.... like I owed myself something. So i decided I would treat myself to a Daim McFlurry. I walked the two minutes to McDonalds, ordered my McFlurry only to be told that they were sold out of that flavour. I did not care for smarties or magnum flavours so i just left.

No big deal you think....but it turns out that almost every time i go to a McDonalds in Denmark there is a problem. Here is a short history (almost all at unique locations).

1. Mcflurry. I REALLY wanted the Daim McFlurry today. And of course they are sold out. I don't think they have ever been sold out of a McFlurry type any time I have ordered one in Canada.

2. Coffee. We ordered some cappuccinos there once....10 minutes into waiting, the McDonalds service representative told us the machine was broken and we had to order something else. 10 minuets to tell us that? and broken?

3. Egg Mcmuffin. The main McDonalds at the busy Nørreport station had been rumored to have breakfast sandwhichs (Ben had one once), so one saturday morning we decided to make the trip down to get one. We arrived at about 9am, and were told that on that particular day, no, Mcdonalds was not serving breakfast. Apparently only certain staff were trained at preparing breakfast and none of them were working that day. Huh? Let me back there - i can make my own egg mcmuffin if you give me the supplies!

side note - i have been to mcdonalds and stockholm and helsinki for breakfast and have enjoyed an egg mcmuffin there....i am not sure what Danes have against the egg mcmuffin. it really is delicious.

4. McChicken sandwhich. I ordered a McChicken sandwhich - no big deal right? It took the staff 15 minutes to prepare it. After about 5 minutes I asked what the problem was. I was told that the 'McChicken' was the most complicated of the sandwhiches and required extra time to make. Really? the McDonalds staff in Canada seem to have it down pretty good.

5. Also I would like to comment on the long lineups at all of the McDonalds in Denmark. Especially Nørreport. They definitely lack a level of efficiency that is present in Canada.

6. One more difference between Denmark and Canada - no honey mustard sauce! My favourite for chicken mcnuggets! And all sauces, including ketchup, cost extra. There are no free flowing ketchup dispensers around the restaurant. And if any of you are familiar with the Big Mac Index, you will know that the Big Mac in Denmark is the fifth most costly Big Mac in the world at $5.37 US. Canada's Big Mac is not much cheaper - coming in at $4.63 in 8th place. But compared to some of the other Big Mac prices in the world - hot damn is Denmark (and Canada I guess) expensive!

At least i get ketchup included in Canada.