CFA® L1 — Quantitative Methods
Time-value of money, statistics, probability, hypothesis testing, regression. The mathematical scaffolding under everything else in the curriculum.
Quick info
- Layer
- Professional Certifications
- Track
- CFA® Level 1
- Estimated hours
- 35 hrs
- Chapters
- 8
- Exam body
- CFA Institute
- Cost on Trustner
- Free
The full chapter-by-chapter syllabus is published below so you know exactly what you're committing to. Individual lesson pages are being authored progressively over the coming weeks. Bookmark this page or browse all courses.
About this course
The mathematical scaffolding under everything else in the CFA Level 1 curriculum. Time-value of money, statistics, probability, hypothesis testing, regression. Build this slowly and the rest of the curriculum becomes manageable.
Who this is for
- CFA Level 1 candidates beginning the program.
- Engineering and CA backgrounds adding investment finance.
- Anyone wanting a structured statistics-for-finance refresher.
What you'll learn
- TVM applications — present value, annuities, perpetuities
- Probability theory — distributions, expected values, conditional probability
- Sampling, estimation, and hypothesis testing
- Linear regression and its application to investment problems
- Time-series basics — seasonality, autocorrelation
Full syllabus — 8 chapters
- 1Reading 1
Time value of money in finance
- Discount factors, present and future values
- Annuities, perpetuities, growing perpetuities
- 2Reading 2
Organising and visualising data
- Frequency distributions, histograms, box plots
- Heat maps and scatter plots
- 3Reading 3
Probability concepts
- Conditional and joint probability
- Bayes' theorem in financial contexts
- 4Reading 4
Common probability distributions
- Discrete — binomial, Poisson
- Continuous — uniform, normal, lognormal
- 5Reading 5
Sampling and estimation
- Sample mean and variance
- Central Limit Theorem and confidence intervals
- 6Reading 6
Hypothesis testing
- Null and alternative hypotheses
- t-tests, z-tests, p-values
- 7Reading 7
Linear regression
- Single-variable regression
- Coefficient interpretation, R², SSE
- 8Reading 8
Time-series basics
- Trends and seasonality
- AR(1) and stationarity
About the exam
- Provider
- CFA Institute
Note: ~8-12% of CFA L1 weight.
The exam is administered by CFA Institute. Trustner Academy is not affiliated with CFA Institute; we provide independent preparatory educational material. See our disclaimer.
More from CFA® Level 1
CFA® L1 — Economics
Micro and macro foundations, exchange rates, monetary and fiscal policy, business cycles — the global lens through which CFA candidates think about markets.
CFA® L1 — Financial Statement Analysis
Reading balance sheets, income statements, and cash flows the way analysts do. The most exam-weighted topic in Level 1.
CFA® L1 — Corporate Issuers
Capital structure, working capital, dividend policy, ESG, and the corporate-finance fundamentals every analyst is expected to know cold.
CFA® L1 — Equity Investments
Markets, indices, equity valuation, industry analysis. The introduction to equity investing that L2 builds heavily on.