2024 CFA© Program Curriculum - Level Prerequisite Reading - Volume 1 - Quantitative Methods

How to Use the CFA Program Curriculum
	Errata
Quantitative Methods
	Learning Module 1	Interest Rates, Present Value, and Future Value
		Introduction
		Interest Rates
		Future Value of a Single Cash Flow
		Non-Annual Compounding (Future Value)
		Continuous Compounding
			Stated and Effective Rates
		Future Value of a Series of Cash Flows
			Equal Cash Flows—Ordinary Annuity
			Unequal Cash Flows
		Present Value of a Single Cash Flow
		Non-Annual Compounding (Present Value)
		Present Value of a Series of Equal and Unequal Cash Flows
			The Present Value of a Series of Equal Cash Flows
			The Present Value of a Series of Unequal Cash Flows
		Present Value of a Perpetuity
			Present Values Indexed at Times Other than t = 0
		Solving for Interest Rates, Growth Rates, and Number of Periods
			Solving for Interest Rates and Growth Rates
			Solving for the Number of Periods
		Solving for Size of Annuity Payments
		Present and Future Value Equivalence and the Additivity Principle
			The Cash Flow Additivity Principle
		Summary
		Practice Problems
		Solutions
	Learning Module 2	Organizing, Visualizing, and Describing Data
		Introduction
		Data Types
			Numerical versus Categorical Data
			Cross-Sectional versus Time-Series versus Panel Data
			Structured versus Unstructured Data
			Data Summarization
		Organizing Data for Quantitative Analysis
		Summarizing Data Using Frequency Distributions
		Summarizing Data Using a Contingency Table
		Data Visualization
			Histogram and Frequency Polygon
			Bar Chart
			Tree-Map
			Word Cloud
			Line Chart
			Scatter Plot
			Heat Map
			Guide to Selecting among Visualization Types
		Measures of Central Tendency
			The Arithmetic Mean
			The Median
			The Mode
			Other Concepts of Mean
		Quantiles
			Quartiles, Quintiles, Deciles, and Percentiles
			Quantiles in Investment Practice
		Measures of Dispersion
			The Range
			The Mean Absolute Deviation
			Sample Variance and Sample Standard Deviation
		Downside Deviation and Coefficient of Variation
			Coefficient of Variation
		Summary
		Practice Problems
		Solutions
	Learning Module 3	Probability Concepts
		Probability Concepts and Odds Ratios
			Probability and Odds
		Conditional and Joint Probability
		Principles of Counting
		Summary
		References
		Practice Problems
		Solutions
	Learning Module 4	Common Probability Distributions
		Discrete Random Variables
			Discrete Random Variables
		Discrete and Continuous Uniform Distribution
			Continuous Uniform Distribution
		Binomial Distribution
		Normal Distribution
			The Normal Distribution
			Probabilities Using the Normal Distribution
			Standardizing a Random Variable
			Probabilities Using the Standard Normal Distribution
		Student’s t-, Chi-Square, and F-Distributions
			Student’s t-Distribution
			Chi-Square and F-Distribution
		Summary
		References
		Practice Problems
		Solutions
	Learning Module 5	Sampling and Estimation
		Introduction
		Point Estimates of the Population Mean
			Point Estimators
		Confidence Intervals for the Population Mean and Sample Size Selection
			Selection of Sample Size
		Sampling-Related Biases
			Data Snooping Bias
			Sample Selection Bias
			Look-Ahead Bias
			Time-Period Bias
		Summary
		References
		Practice Problems
		Solutions
	Learning Module 6	Basics of Hypothesis Testing
		Introduction
			Why Hypothesis Testing?
			Implications from a Sampling Distribution
		The Process of Hypothesis Testing
			Stating the Hypotheses
			Two-Sided vs. One-Sided Hypotheses
			Selecting the Appropriate Hypotheses
		Identify the Appropriate Test Statistic
			Test Statistics
			Identifying the Distribution of the Test Statistic
		Specify the Level of Significance
		State the Decision Rule
			Determining Critical Values
			Decision Rules and Confidence Intervals
			Collect the Data and Calculate the Test Statistic
		Make a Decision
			Make a Statistical Decision
			Make an Economic Decision
			Statistically Significant but Not Economically Significant?
		The Role of p-Values
		Multiple Tests and Significance Interpretation
		Tests Concerning a Single Mean
		Test Concerning Differences between Means with Independent Samples
		Test Concerning Differences between Means with Dependent Samples
		Testing Concerning Tests of Variances
			Tests of a Single Variance
			Test Concerning the Equality of Two Variances (F-Test)
		Summary
		References
		Practice Problems
		Solutions
	Learning Module 7	Appendices
		Appendices
	Glossary