Financial Exam Help 123

Welcome!

Welcome to Financial Exam Help 123, the place to get help for the CFA exams.  I’m Bill Campbell III, CFA, and I’ve been teaching CFA review courses since 2005.  If you’re a candidate, please go to the tab for the exam for which you’re registered; there you’ll find links to articles that I have written on topics that you’re studying.  If you’d like help on a topic that isn’t on the list, send me a comment (be sure to include which level) and I’ll get to it as soon as I can.

Financial Exam Help 123

For decades, clients of Financial Exam Help 123 have reported success stories. From study guides and mock exams to personal coaching and review, you can expect a personalized touch to see you through whichever CFA Level Exam you are approaching.

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Bill Campbell III, is one of the minority of CFA charterholders who passed each CFA exam the first time he took them. While not intended to discredit others, this, combined with decades of experience, suggest that he has a good understanding of what it takes to pass the exams.  As testimony to his teaching abilities, in 2013 he was dubbed “the oracle of Analyst Forum” by one of the candidates who posts on that website.

Bill has written content and curriculum for numerous CFA Exam prep providers and has led review courses and intensive workshops in locations around the world.

Bill is also a professional magician, and has owned, trained and ridden Arabian horses, having participated in an international equestrian world championship held in Mafra, Portugal, in September 2012.

  • Valuing Risky Bonds

    In this context, a risky bond is one for which there is a nonzero probability of default.  Conceptually, valuing such a bond is child’s play: you calculate the (present) value of the bond assuming no default (which the curriculum abbreviates VND: Value, No Default), then subtract the (present) value of the expected credit losses (i.e.,…

  • Yield Curve Strategies – Dynamic Yield Curve

    Making Money with Bonds In the article on yield curve strategies in general, I mentioned the two broad ways to make money with bonds: Coupons (more generally, to incorporate synthetic strategies using, for example, swaps: interest payments) Price changes The curriculum breaks down the expected return on a bond in this manner: \begin{align}E\left(R\right) &≈ Coupon\…

  • Yield Curve Strategies – Static Yield Curve

    Making Money with Bonds In the article on yield curve strategies in general, I mentioned the two broad ways to make money with bonds: Coupons (more generally, to incorporate synthetic strategies using, for example, swaps: interest payments) Price changes The curriculum breaks down the expected return on a bond in this manner: \begin{align}E\left(R\right) &≈ Coupon\…

  • Dividend Discount Models

    A time-honored method to determine the value of an investment is to discount to the present all of the investment’s (expected) future cash flows, and tot up those present values.  It’s a method we use commonly when valuing bonds, and when valuing projects in which a company is considering investing (e.g., whether or not to…

  • Equity Valuation Models

    The CFA curriculum discusses a variety of methods for estimating the value of a company’s equity.  The approaches, or models, fall broadly into these categories (covered in separate articles; follow the links): Present value models (also known as discounted cash flow models) Dividend discount models (DDMs) Free cash flow to equity (FCFE) models Free cash…

  • Short Butterfly Spread

    If you haven’t read the article on option strategies in general, that’s a good place to start, then return here. In particular, if you haven’t read the warning about calculating profit that appears at the end of that article, you should go read it now; the way I’m calculating the profit here is correct, but…