CFA Level 3: Pass

August 6th, 2013, a day which will live in infamy; I am finally done with CFA exams.  Surprisingly, the results email came in at 8:17 CST and I began to scan the preview line on Gmail waiting to see "I sincerely regret...", but surprisingly saw "Congratulations...".  I smirked as I opened the email since I could barely believe it.  Not because I didn't feel like I deserved to pass or that I didn't put in the time but because a journey that I started in June 2008 was now finally at an end.  I threw my hands up and yelled "Booyah!", and that was the extent of my celebration.

Passing level 3 on the first try also gives me a bit more satisfaction than if I could have done it on any of the other levels.  The reason being is I have always considered myself to have a "Portfolio Manager" type mind set based on my own trading/portfolio management and interest in markets.  This gave me a bit more feeling of "validation" in being able to pass on the first try.  I did have a couple other advantages in that some of the level 3 material was a bit more familiar since I work at an institutional investment consulting firm and my own interest in options made the options section a joke.  On test day though the options background was of little help unfortunately(damn you CFA Institute!).

I was fairly surprised that the the pass rate was only 49%, which is the second time in history it has been below the 50% level(last year was 53% pass rate).  I think time management is definitely an issue on the exam with the essay format so I tried to be as diligent as possible in sticking to the time guidelines.  I am not sure if this really helped me pass since I still had to write what they wanted to see but I will say that doing multiple practice exams of the essay format likely made me more comfortable on test day(note to any CFA takes who read this ;-)).

Part of me is left wondering what I will do now that I don't have to study for an exam approximately half the year.  Literally just the other day I was thinking about not eating 3 meals a day at my office while studying and part of me was a bit sad, for some odd reason haha.  I am sure I will have plenty of other things to fill my time.  I am currently working on designing and building my own mid-engined super car which I will discuss in another blog.  I am also planning to try and find some C++ or Java programming crash courses to learn how to code.  Another consideration are the CAIA exams.  They are much less material, only 2 levels and supposedly quite a bit easier compared to CFA exams so I will likely sign up for the first level in March.  We use quite a bit of that material at my current employer so it also makes sense to consider CAIA.  I am definitely not one to just get designations for the sake of getting them, but there is some incentive to do CAIA in addition to CFA. Even though CFA encompasses more of what I ultimately want to do, I don't really know how the future will unfold so I may as well keep my options open and learn more where I can.

As a trading update, I am roughly up 6% YTD after expenses.  Technically it is 8% gross but after crazy fees(I may need to find a new broker) it is only 6%.  That may seem poor compared to the move in the S&P, however my actual time in market is under a month so I am fairly happy with that return.  Many have been volatility plays around earnings, in between earnings I am planning to do more passive index vol strategies.  I am hoping I can pull off a 10% year(after expenses) with very low correlation.  I will likely update at the end of the year with an analysis of my performance and trades.

I'm glad CFA is finally done.  I can check one accomplishment off my list and move on to the next challenge!