Maintaining Physical State to improve Retention

Your physical state directly affects your psychological state:

• Eating a balanced diet, avoiding alcohol, and getting good rest will keep you from getting sick and missing study time. These will also keep you happy and motivated.
• Remember to eat regularly, at least three meals a day. Your retention decreases when you’re hungry.
• Exercise as much as possible, even if only for 15 minutes a day because weight lifting and cardiovascular exercises are proven to improve memory and reduce stress (which you will have a lot of with work and studying). You can squeeze in an intense cardiovascular work out by jumping rope or running on an uphill treadmill for 15 minutes. 

Video Tutorial - Mortgage Back Securities (1)

Psychological and Physical Challenges of Preparing for and Taking a Large Exam

While browsing I found the below mentioned challenges which were faced by me and others whom I know, appearing in the exam with me. I have made some additions in them based upon my experience of level I and compiled them to share with you.

Studying for the exam is a major commitment and the preparation process will have a psychological effect on you. For me, the biggest difficulties were:

1. Decreased time with friends and family
2. Concern about having to take the level 1 exam again (fear of failure)
3. Burnout

Decreased time with friends and family:

One result of perusing level 1 is that the time you spend with friends and family will decrease. You’ll find yourself declining social engagements, especially during the immediate period leading up to the exam. Your friends and family may stop inviting you to things, because they feel that you will just say no anyways. You may also feel guilty for neglecting to spend time with people you normally spend time with. 

Before you begin studying for the exam I recommend you personally tell your closest friends and family about your CFA time commitment, letting them know that you won’t be able to spend as much time with them, asking them for their support, and telling them that you apologize in advance for being less accessible. By doing this your friends and family know what to expect and you will feel more comfortable about your time spent away from them.

You can find a way to spend time with your friends by inviting them to your place to do something that is not time consuming. To save time, try doing things in or around your house. By inviting your friends over they will see that although you have little free time you are still making an effort to maintain the relationship.

Concern about having to take level 1 again:
Roughly 60% of people fail the exam which means that the average test taker is more likely to fail than pass. I say this not to discourage you, but to remind you that you will need persistence and determination to pass, and that some people take the level 1 exam twice before they pass, especially if they are new to finance. Taking level 1 multiple times is not bad or embarrassing, however, you should do everything in your power to pass the first time. Remember Life is all about choices, we make them and do not look back. Moreover we fall in order to learn how to stand up. Failing the exam gives an opportunity to learn from the exam environment and revisit the mistakes. Does that mean with the fear of failure one should stop putting in effort? Never. Strive for excellence, success will automatically be achieved.

Burnout:
If your retention becomes poor, your mind drifts while studying, and you don’t feel as motivated as you used to be you might be burnt out.There is no explanation why this happens when it does, but when you become burnt out make sure to recognize it early so you don’t go for two or three weeks without fixing the problem. To fix burnout take a two or three day break, doing relaxing activities that you enjoy. Treat yourself better and try avoiding people with pessimistic ideas. Stay away from media programs which develop in you frustration. Watching an episode of a funny season or a movie can help immensely in overcoming the burnout. You can manage your routine in a way that you take some time out of your daily routine and spend that time for yourself by saving your energy. Exercise helps in developing energies while watching television or doing any other activity which involves brain consumption reduces energy levels. 

Autoregressive (AR) Models Time Series (Part C) - Quantitative Methods Level II

Mean Reversion.

A time series shows mean reversion if it tends to move towards its mean i.e. decrease when its current value is above its mean and increase when its current value is below its mean.When a time series equals its mean-reverting value, then the model predicts that the value of the time series will be the same in the next period.


Multi-period Forecasts and the Chain Rule of Forecasting.

The chain rule of forecasting is a process in which a predicted value two periods ahead is estimated by first predicting the next period’s value and substituting it into the equation of a predicted value two periods ahead. It is important to note that the Multi-period forecast is more uncertain than single-period forecasts because the uncertainty increases when number of periods in the forecast increase.


Comparing Forecasting Model Performance.

The accuracy of the model depends on its forecast error variance. The smaller the forecast error variance, the more accurate the model will be.

In-sample forecast errors: These are the residuals from the fitted time series model i.e. residuals within a sample period.
Out-of-sample forecast errors: These are the residuals outside the sample period. It is more important to have smaller forecast error variance for out-of-sample forecasts because the predicted values are always out of sample. In order to evaluate out-of-sample forecasting accuracy of the model. Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) is used. RMSE is the square root of average squared error.
Decision Rule: The smaller the RMSE, the more accurate the model will be.


The RMSE (Root Mean Squared Error) is used as a criterion for comparing forecasting performance of different forecasting models. To accurately evaluate uncertainty of forecast, both the uncertainty related to the error term and the uncertainty related to the estimated parameters in the time-series model must be considered.

NOTE: If the model has the lowest RMSE for in-sample data, it does not guarantee that the model will have the lowest RMSE for out-of-sample data as well.

Instability of Regression Coefficients.

When the estimated regression coefficients in one period are quite different from those estimated during another period, this problem is known as instability or nonstationarity. The estimates of regression coefficients of the timeseries model can be different across different sample periods i.e. the estimates of regression coefficients using shorter sample period will be different from using longer sample periods. Thus, sample period selection is one of the important decisions in time series regression analysis.


· Using longer time periods increases statistical reliability but estimates are not stable.
· Using shorter time periods increase stability of the estimates but statistical reliability is decreased.


NOTE: We cannot select the correct sample period for the regression analysis by simply analyzing the autocorrelations of the residuals from a time-series model. In order to select the correct sample, it is necessary that data should be Covariance Stationary.

Video Tutorial - Mortgage Back Securities Overview

CFA Related Professions.

Following are some examples of CFA related professions:

• Equity (stock) analysis
• Examples of companies are any major investment bank, Standard and Poors, Value Line, etc.
• Credit (bond) analysis
• Standard and Poors, Moody’s, Fitch Ratings, DBRS
• Mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures
• Any major investment bank, namely Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase etc. There are also a number of boutique M&A firms.
• Investment banking
• Conduct initial public offerings of stocks
• Conduct placements of bonds
• Trading etc.
• Private equity
• Carlyle group, Texas Pacific Group, Blackstone, KKR, Goldman Sachs
• Real estate investing
• Vornado, Equity Office Properties, Equity Residental,Brookfield Properties
• Pension & Endowment management/consulting
• Russell, Cambridge Associates, Ennis Knupp, Barclays Global
• Private wealth management (private banking)
• All major investment banks, Mellon Financial, Stanford Financial, US Trust
• Hedge funds
• Bridgewater, D.E. Shaw, SAC Capital Partners, etc.
• Mutual funds
• Fidelity, American Funds (a Capital Group Company), Vanguard, etc.
• Economic consulting
• NERA, LECG
• Tax and transaction consulting (i.e., accounting firm)
• KPMG, Deloitte & Touche, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, etc.

Disclaimer: List of company names include Charter holders which have been  working there and only mentioned as examples. It was compiled before some time and may contain some names which have faced credit event and therefore acquired, merged or ceased to exist. 

Kopin weakens below Moving Average Price (MAP); 50-day MAP trails 200-day MAP

Kopin (KOPN.O), NASDAQ's 55th largest electronics company by market capitalisation, has dropped below its trend. The 200-day moving average price (MAP) was US$4.181. The price to 200-day MAP ratio is 0.88, a bearish indicator. In the past 200 days this ratio has been under 0.88 50 times suggesting further downside. The stock is trading below both its MAPs and the 50-day MAP of US$3.815 is lower than the 200-day MAP of US$4.181, another bearish indicator. The stock fell for a second day on Monday bringing its two-day fall to 36.0c or 8.9%. The stock price fell 14.0c (or 3.7%) to close at US$3.67. Compared with the NASDAQ-100 index, which fell 22.9 points (or 1.0%) on the day, this was a relative price change of -2.7%.

PRICE DYNAMICS
Volatility: the stock traded between an intraday high of US$3.942 and a six-day low of US$3.66, suggesting a trading opportunity between peaks and troughs. Today its volatility of 7.7% was 6.3 times its average volatility of 1.2%. A price fall on high volatility is a bearish signal. The average daily volatility of 4.3% places the stock in the 2nd quartile in the market meaning it is moderately volatile.
% Discount to high: the last price is at a discount of 29.7% to the 12-month high of US$5.22 seven months ago on 31 May, 2011.
% Premium to low: the last price is at a premium of 19.5% to the 12-month low of US$3.07 three months ago on 04 Oct, 2011.
Volume weighted price (VWP): the price is equal to its 1-month volume weighted average price of US$3.682.
Beta: The Beta of this stock is 1.31. A Beta greater than 1 suggests this is a high risk, high return stock with volatility greater than that of the market.
Standard Deviation (SD): SD is a statistical measure of deviation from the mean. The SD of 3.5% gives it a percentile rank of 58 meaning that 58% of stocks in the NASDAQ market are less volatile than this stock.
Trailing month: in the last 21 trading sessions there has been a net decline of 5.9%; the stock has retreated 16 times and the biggest one day decline was 7.2% on Nov 23.
AGGREGATE VOLUMES, PRICES AND TURNOVER PERIOD
[Volume Index or VI in brackets; 1 is average]
NASDAQ: KOPN.O 190,463 [VI of 0.7]; volume 81.96% of aggregate. Price: US$3.67.
BATS: KOPN.BATS 41,909 [VI of 1.3]; volume 18.04% of aggregate. Price: US$3.67.
Aggregate volume: there were 232,372 shares worth US$852,805 traded. The aggregate volume was 0.8 times average trading of 299,610 shares.
Access comprehensive Stock Research on http://www.buysellsignals.com/19711370
PRICE PERFORMANCE RANK IN INDEX AND SECTORS
The stock is in 1 index and 2 sectors.
The following index and sectors fell setting the trend for its fall of 3.7%:
Electronics sector of 139 stocks traded today, which was down 21.1 points or 2.2% to 938.3,
The Total NASDAQ Market of 2416 stocks traded today, which was down 21.6 points or 1.2% to 1,753.6,
NASDAQ-100 index which was down 22.9 points or 1.0% to 2,215.3
RELATIVE VALUATION INDICATORS [RVI] FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS
The stock meets the following value criteria set by Benjamin Graham:
-"Current ratio of two or more"; current assets are 7.44 times current liabilities.
The stock has a score of 5 out of 9 set by Joseph Piotroski [pass mark >=5 ]:
Positive net income; Positive operating cashflow; Good quality of earnings [operating cashflow exceeds net income]; Reduction in total shares on issue; Improvement in asset turnover [growth in revenue of 5.0% exceeded growth in assets of 4.84%].
Other Bullish Signals:
- The earnings yield of 3.62% is 1.9 times the 10-year bond yield of 1.86%.
- The Price to Book of 1.5 lower than average of 2.2 for the Electronics sector and 3.4 for the Total NASDAQ Market. We estimate the shares are trading at a current year Price to Book of 1.4 and a forward year Price to Book of 1.3.
- The company is cash rich with Cash to Market Capitalisation at 20.2%.
Bearish Signals:
- Price/Earnings of 27.6 versus sector average of 12.4 and market average of 20.0. We estimate the shares are trading at a current year P/E of 13.1 and a forward year P/E of 6.3.
- Price/Sales of 1.96 versus sector average of 0.7 and market average of 1.5. We estimate the shares are trading at a current year Price/Sales of 1.8 and a forward year Price/Sales of 1.7.
- Return on Equity of 5.4% versus sector average of 13.9% and market average of 10.7%.
- Return on Assets of 4.7% versus sector average of 6.0% and market average of 4.0%.
- The average annual compound return on the share price in the last 5 years was 0.9%, underperforming the average annual compound return on the NASDAQ-100 index of 4.7%
RELATIVE VALUATION INDICATORS [RVI] TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Bullish Signals:
- The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator of 12-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) minus the 26-day EMA is positive suggesting a bullish signal.
Bearish Signals:
- The price weakened 2.4% in the last week.
- This has been exacerbated by firm volume of 1.5 times average for the week.
- Compared with the NASDAQ-100 index which fell 1.7% for the month, this represented a relative price decrease of 4.7% for the month.
- In the NASDAQ market of 2,416 stocks traded today, the stock has a 6-month relative strength of 34 which means it has underperformed 66.0% of the market.
- The price to 50-day EMAP ratio is 0.97. In the past 50 days this ratio has been under 0.97 just nine times suggesting a support level. The 50-day EMAP has decreased to US$3.782. A decrease is another bearish indicator.
- In the last three months the stock has hit a new 52-week low twice.
- The price to 200-day MAP ratio is 0.88, a bearish indicator. In the past 200 days this ratio has been under 0.88 50 times suggesting further downside. The stock is trading below both its MAPs and the 50-day MAP of US$3.815 is lower than the 200-day MAP of US$4.181, another bearish indicator.
SHAREHOLDER RETURNS
Trailing one week: the stock fell three times (60% of the time) and rose twice (40% of the time). The aggregate volume was 1.5 times average trading of 1,491,500 shares. The value of US$1,000 invested a week ago is US$918 [vs US$967 for the NASDAQ-100 index], for a capital loss of US$82(or loss of 8.2%).
Trailing one month: the stock rose eleven times (55% of the time) and fell nine times (45% of the time). The aggregate volume was 0.9 times average trading of 6,562,600 shares. The value of US$1,000 invested a month ago is US$936 [vs US$986 for the NASDAQ-100 index], for a capital loss of US$64(or loss of 6.4%).
Trailing one year: the value of US$1,000 invested one year ago is US$821 [vs US$1,009 for the NASDAQ-100 index], for a capital loss of US$179. The total return to shareholders for 1 year is -17.9%.
Trailing five years: the value of US$1,000 invested five years ago is US$1,046, for a capital gain of US$46.
The present value of US$1000 invested at a previous date is shown below:
FINANCIALS
Quarterly Report:
In the quarter to September 24, 2011 total revenue of US$29.6 million; net profit of US$797,000; EPS of 2.0c.
Annual Report for the year ended December 25, 2010 (year-on-year comparisons with previous corresponding period)-
Favourable Changes: total revenue up 1.5% to $US125.6m; a track record of profits in 3 of the last 3 years; Net tangible assets per share up 4.6% to $US2.51.
Unfavourable Changes: net profit slumps 54.1% to $US8.9m; EPS slumps 55.2% to 13.0 U.S. cents; although the Total Liabilities to Operating Cash Flow ratio of 1.5 compares favourably with the Joseph Piotroski benchmark of <4, it had deteriorated by 90.1% from the previous year.; total liabilities to total assets up 10.0% to 0.1; current ratio down 12.0% to 7.4; Working capital to total assets down 6.1% to 68.8%; total revenue to total assets down 3.2% to 0.7.
Major Common Size Ratios: total current assets to total assets down from 83.1% to 79.5%; cash to total assets down from 29.9% to 25.9%; fixed assets to total assets up from 11.3% to 17.0%; current inventory to total assets up from 9.0% to 11.2%; current debtors to total assets down from 8.0% to 7.6%; cost of goods sold to sales up from 61.4% to 64.7%; sales and marketing expenses to sales up from 11.4% to 11.8%; profit before tax to sales down from 15.7% to 7.8%; profit after tax to sales down from 15.7% to 7.1%; depreciation to sales up from 4.8% to 5.2%.
FUNDAMENTALS
ISSUED CAPITAL
Based on 67,246,000 issued equity shares the market capitalisation is US$246.8 million. It is NASDAQ's 78th largest Electronics company by total revenue.
ACTIVITIES
Kopin Corporation is a developer and manufacturer of III-V products and miniature flat panel displays. The Company uses its semiconductor material technology to design, manufacture and market its III-V and display products. The Company products enable its customers to develop and market a generation of products for applications in wireless and consumer electronic products. The Company commercially develops and manufactures Gallium Arsenide-based heterojunction bipolar transistor wafers (HBT transistor wafers) and other commercial semiconductor products that use Gallium Nitride and Gallium Arsenide-based substrates. The Company operates in two segments: Kopin US, which includes the operations in the United States and the Company's equity method investments, and Kowon.
TOP MANAGEMENT
The chief financial officer is Richard A. Sneider and the chief executive officer and chairman is John C.C. Fan.
REPORTED BUYING
Reported Buying:
May 03: Kopin insider buys
Kopin (KOPN.O) insider Brewington James K bought 10,000 shares worth approximately US$48,100 on April 29, 2011. The last price was US$4.80.
May 03: Kopin insider buys
Kopin (KOPN.O) insider Brook David bought 10,000 shares worth approximately US$48,100 on April 29, 2011. The last price was US$4.80.
May 03: Kopin insider buys
Kopin (KOPN.O) insider Landine Michael J bought 10,000 shares worth approximately US$48,100 on April 29, 2011. The last price was US$4.80.
May 03: Kopin insider buys
Kopin (KOPN.O) insider Collins Morton bought 10,000 shares worth approximately US$48,100 on April 29, 2011. The last price was US$4.80.
May 03: Kopin insider buys
Kopin (KOPN.O) insider Hsieh Chi Chia Dr. bought 10,000 shares worth approximately US$48,100 on April 29, 2011. The last price was US$4.80.
BUSINESS NEWS ROUND UP
The last 5 company announcements are:
December 13: Kopin insider gift shares
Kopin (KOPN.O) insider Fan John C C gifted 30,201 shares worth approximately US$120,804 on December 09, 2011.
June 16: Kopin Wins $23.2 Million in Follow-On Orders for U.S. Army's Thermal Weapon Sight Program
[News Story] TAUNTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Kopin(Registered) Corporation (NASDAQ: KOPN), the leading U.S. manufacturer of display systems for mobile consumer and military applications, today announced it has been awarded $23.2 million in follow-on production orders for display systems in support of U.S.
May 31: Kopin and Its Subsidiary Forth Dimension Displays Introduce Replicating Reality(TradeMark)
TAUNTON, Mass.(BUSINESS WIRE) Forth Dimension Displays (FDD), a leading provider of display components for fighter jet and helicopter simulators, and subsidiary of Kopin(Registered) Corporation, will introduce Replicating Reality(TradeMark). Replicating Reality is a new concept to create the ultimate experience by making the user feel fully immersed in a different world or hyper-reality.
May 17: Kopin Brings High-Definition, Large-Picture Viewing Experience to Mobile Users
TAUNTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Kopin(Registered) Corporation (NASDAQ: KOPN), the leader in microdisplays for consumer and military applications, will showcase its newest high-resolution displays and module products at the SID (Society for Information Display) 2011 Exhibition.
May 11: Kopin Receives CLARUS Award at MDB Capital's Bright Lights Conference 2011
[News Story] TAUNTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Kopin(Registered) Corporation (NASDAQ: KOPN), a leading supplier of advanced semiconductor materials and microdisplays for mobile applications including smartphones, tablet PCs, military thermal weapons sights and wearable computers, today announced that it received the CLARUS Award, presented by MDB Capital Group at the second annual Bright Lights Conference in New York City.Kopin was selected as one of the 40 most innovative public companies from more than 1,500 small-cap companies with granted U.S.
Source: www.BuySellSignals.com

Debt to Equity Ratio - Video Tutorial

Salary for Chartered Financial Analyst (in US as of 18 Dec. 2011)

The above snapshots are taken from payscale.com which updated the data from 151 individuals from US, as of 18th December, 2011. The data suggests the salary range of Chartered Financial Analysts from $34,906 - $116,703. The bonuses are from $1,454 - $41,217. The Profit sharing is from $23.49 - $28,118. This results in Total Pay ranging from $37,477 - $139,591.

The popular industries which have hired such people in increasing order of Salary are Financial Services, Investment Services, Banking, Investment Banking, Insurance & Financial Services.

It is important to note that irrespective of the Degrees the median salary is almost the same. Medical benefits are most common.

Motivation Pick - Jens Peers & Matthew Sheldon

Kleinwort Benson Investors International Ltd is a leading Dublin-based SRI firm whose principals have expertise in the fast-growing, nascent alternative energy sector, a long history of socially responsible investing, and a strong reputation in multi-cap global investing. Kleinwort Benson Investors International Ltd has one of the longest track records of any manager in alternative energy assets. The firm uses a combination of quantitative and fundamental investment processes to evaluate potential investments. Top-down views on industries, sectors, or regions act as risk controls, while a fair-value target model may be used to help determine the purchase or sale of a stock.

Jens Peers, CFA is the lead Portfolio Manager of Calvert Global Alternative Energy Fund and Calvert Global Water Fund. Mr. Peers joined KBC Bank in 1998 and KBI in 2003. He holds a Licentiate (equivalent to a master's degree) in Applied Economics from the University of Antwerp in Belgium.



Matthew Sheldon joined the Environmental Strategies team at Kleinwort Benson Investors International, Ltd. as a portfolio manager in April 2011. He has extensive specialist knowledge and experience in investing in the water sector, including both global public equities and private equity. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Sheldon worked at Water Asset Management, where he was an Investment Analyst, and at Wedge Capital Management, where he was an Equity Analyst. Mr. Sheldon graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University with a BS in Chemical Engineering. He holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School, and is a CFA charter holder.