Panicked by derivatives?! feeling, into, completely, remember, amount

evolsteevol

Hi Guys,
Just wondering if anyone else is feeling completely daunted by the derivatives topics and the amount of formulas that we must remember? How much time have you spent on this topic? Am worried it will take me too long and eat into time I need to spend on other topics…

onelife1

and to those who have done derivatives… how much is similar with level 1. the topics look the same but content looks different?
what is the difficulty of derivative with the rest of topics in l2

spartanag07

To the OP: Given you passed lvl 1 derivatives, and adjusting for errata, derivatives isn’t too long. Its complex regard to valuation, but referring to Schweser after you’ve gone thru CFAI should lock in everything.
Pierrewoodman: Not to be a dick, but out of your 148 posts, half of your posts deal with either prejudicial comments towards Indians or comparisons between topics and level 1/2.  Considering everyone has a different educational/work background, difficulty in a topic is all relative. Are you not going to crack open the book if I told you derivatives is a cakewalk?

DoubleDip

im going thru the curriculum serially.. havent reached dv

chetan86

thx daily grind for recommending both CFAI and Schweser.. still feel daunted though, so guess its the case of powering on…

IAmNeil

Derivatives’ valuation is based purely on logic. If you understand the material you do not have to remember much! I found that one of the most straight-forward sections. (much unlike FRA and Eco). For example, in the forwards/ futures section the treatment for benefits, storage costs, coupons, dividends etc is the same!
I would suggest a slow reading over the material until you are sure that you understand everything clearly, combined with EOC. Be sure that you try to replicate all formulas and not just recall them from memory. Then you won’t have a problem!! (plus schweser’s done indeed  a good job on the subject.)
Best of luck!

iteracom

Only did futures and forwards at this point, and indeed, like Charis said, they are very similar and above that, very logical in terms of valuation as well.
If you don’t understand by reading (I tend to lose attention when seeing a lot of formulas), try watching a video. I use Elan and they take a step-by-step approach, going very slowly in the beginning. Once I got the hang of it, I didn’t even need to finish the video as it’s quite straightforward once you see it.

canadiananalyst

Fi readi9ng 44 is so much like derivatives

adehbone

I was finding derivatives really difficult until I cracked open the Schweser notes, and now it seems much more straightforward than I originally thought. Did anyone else find the CFAI book on derivatives to be a bit confusing? I’m considering reading only Schweser + blue box question + EOC questions for this section and skipping the CFAI explanations. Thoughts?
Is anyone using only the Schweser text?

Bad5shah

no big deal once you crammer the formulas..