Chartered Financial Analyst®

Optional introductory courses

The CFA® Program attracts candidates from a wide range of investment and finance disciplines. That's why we have designed Optional introductory courses so you can tailor your course to fit your level of knowledge and supplement your learning. You can book one or more of the following:

Level I
Introduction to Accounts courses
Financial Maths Booster courses

Level III
Refresher courses

Level I courses:

Introduction to Accounts course

This one day course will provide an introduction to the mechanics of producing accounts, so you can start your CFA® Level I course with a solid foundation of the main accounting concepts. The course will be supplemented with course notes and the following topics will be covered:

• Introduction to Accounting
• Accounting Conventions
• Ledger Accounts and Double Entry
• From Trial Balance to Financial Statements
• Tangible Non-Current Assets
• Intangible Non-Current Assets
• Accruals and Prepayments
• Irrecoverable Debts and Allowances
• Provisions and Contingencies
• Introduction to Company Accounting
• Preparations of Financial Statements for Companies
• Statements of Cash Flows
  

Financial Maths Booster course

This one day course will prepare you for some of the complex maths that you could encounter within the CFA® Program curriculum. Sitting the course will enhance your maths skills and give you confidence in using the Texas Instruments BAII Plus calculator, which you need for your exam. Topics covered:

• Location and Dispersion - looks at the different ways of measuring an average and leads onto the important concept of standard deviation. We’ll help you understand how standard deviation works and why it’s such an important measure of risk

• Compounding and Discounting - the time value of money, possibly the single most important concept in financial maths. We’ll help you understand the formulae and how to apply it in certain scenarios, as well as common mistakes in this area, so you are ready to apply the techniques in an exam situation

• Project Appraisal Applications - used extensively to appraise investment opportunities. We’ll look at the two most common methods, NPV and IRR

• Investment Valuation Applications - ever wondered why a share or a bond is worth a certain amount? We’ll teach you another application of the discounting technique – all covered on this booster course

• Risk and Return - most people accept that you can only get a greater return if you take on more risk, but how do we measure risk and return? We can use standard deviation to measure risk, but return is not as straight forward as you might think. On this course, we’ll go through the calculation methods and show you when to use the right approach.
  
  

Level III course:

Refresher course

The Refresher course is ideal if you want to retain and build on key areas of Levels I and II. The course can be booked as a weekday, Saturday or evening option.

The course will be supplemented by notes and the following topics are covered:

• Risk and Return: money weighted v time weighted, standard deviation, covariance, portfolio risk and return, risk decomposition
• Fixed Income: Bond valuation, all duration measures including portfolio duration, convexity, spreads including OAS
• Derivatives: FRAs, forward, futures and swaps pricing, option theory (delta and gamma)
• Economics and FX
• Corporate Finance: WACC, asset and equity betas
  

Book now

For further information please email our Course Booking Team on financialservices@bpp.com or call +44(0)208 746 4178