CAIA resources

Alternative investments and portfolio applications

• Early-payment discounts and the additional credit period

  Separate invoice timing, the discount amount and the cost of financing a discounted payment.

  Lessons

• Choosing a common date for cash-flow values

  Move differently dated cash flows to the same date before adding their values.

  Lessons

• Basis points, percentage points and decimal yield changes

  Avoid a hundredfold error when entering yield changes in formulas.

  Common mistakes

• Why a cash-cycle reduction does not specify cash released

  Use each changed component’s own flow base instead of multiplying all days by COGS.

  Common mistakes

• Mixing average and ending assets in DuPont analysis

  Check that the asset amount cancels between turnover and the equity multiplier.

  Common mistakes

• Why dividing an effective annual rate by twelve changes the model

  Use the annual growth factor to obtain an equivalent monthly rate.

  Common mistakes

• A rising goodwill percentage does not identify its cause

  Separate changes in the numerator from changes in the asset denominator.

  Common mistakes

• Recognising a solution versus solving independently

  Check what you can produce before viewing the worked answer.

  Common mistakes

• Restarting finance exam study after a break

  Use a short diagnostic to distinguish forgotten material from unfinished material.

  Study plans

• Building a finance exam retake plan

  Separate knowledge gaps, execution errors and time pressure before choosing new work.

  Study plans

• A study plan for variable work shifts

  Assign tasks to flexible block types when the same weekday is not always available.

  Study plans

• Studying for a finance exam while working full time

  Build a weekly plan around available blocks, practice and review.

  Study plans

• ESG constraints and portfolio-performance practice

  Test feasibility, weight changes and the limits of a performance inference.

  Practice

• Revising formulas with their conditions and units

  Recall what the variables mean and when a formula applies before substituting numbers.

  Revision

• Mixed-topic practice for choosing the right method

  Practise distinguishing similar-looking tasks before applying a familiar formula.

  Revision

• Reviewing a mock exam by error type

  Turn results into specific corrective tasks rather than a single score label.

  Revision

• Reviewing errors in a finance exam vignette

  Separate concept mistakes from retrieving the wrong fact in a shared case.

  Revision

• Centering a sampling distribution at the observed mean

  Distinguish the fixed population parameter from an estimate in one realized sample.

  Common mistakes

• Sampling design review checklist

  Review target, frame, selection, response and estimator before trusting a sample summary.

  Revision

• The central limit theorem and its conditions

  Separate an asymptotic approximation from exact mean and variance identities.

  Lessons

• A unit inclusion probability in two-stage sampling

  Multiply the selected-group chance by the conditional within-group chance.

  Worked examples

• One-stage and two-stage cluster sampling

  Record group selection and within-group selection as separate stages.

  Lessons

• Sampling coverage and nonresponse

  Separate units absent from the selection frame from selected units that do not supply data.

  Concepts

• Correlated observations and effective information

  Inspect a simple common-correlation model before using a row count as independent sample size.

  Concepts

• Probability sampling design and estimation

  Connect the selection mechanism with the estimator and its uncertainty.

  Lessons

• Estimating after disproportionate stratum sampling

  Compare population-weighted and unweighted estimates when small groups are oversampled.

  Worked examples

• Enumerating a finite sampling distribution

  List every possible sample and calculate the distribution of its mean.

  Worked examples

• Defining simple random sampling only by equal chances

  Check the allowed subsets before choosing a variance formula.

  Common mistakes

• Finite-population variance of a simple random mean

  Keep the population divisor and without-replacement sample rule explicit.

  Formulas

• Systematic sampling and a periodic list

  Compare exact uncertainty under a periodic systematic design and a simple random design.

  Worked examples
• 

  Sampling plan and frame log

  Download an editable CSV for the population, selection stages and response counts.

  Templates

• Population, sampling frame and observation unit

  Define who belongs to the study and what one observation represents.

  Lessons

• Practice: sampling design and estimation

  Choose population weights, classify group selection and inspect a sampling distribution.

  Practice

• A rare-event sample mean at thirty observations

  Inspect an exact distribution that a blanket normality rule would miss.

  Worked examples

• Sampling with and without replacement

  Define whether the same population unit can be selected more than once.

  Concepts

• Random design and sample balance

  Distinguish a probability mechanism from the observed composition of one sample.

  Concepts

• Random selection and random assignment

  Distinguish choosing study units from allocating an intervention among them.

  Comparisons

• What defines a simple random sample?

  Inspect the probabilities of complete samples as well as individual-unit chances.

  Concepts

• Stratified and cluster selection

  Compare what is selected from each group before deciding which design is being described.

  Comparisons
• 

  Stratum allocation and estimation sheet

  Download a CSV that separates population shares from sampled counts.

  Templates