Equity Investments and Fixed Income

Ready to master Equity and Fixed Income for your CFA Level 1 exam?

This guide is your complete resource, structured for clear and efficient learning. We begin with Equity Investments. You will learn about market organization and structure. We explain how security market indexes are built and used. We explore the crucial theory of market efficiency. You get a full overview of different equity securities. We teach you how to perform company analysis, looking at both past and present performance. Then we move to industry and competitive analysis. You'll learn the vital skill of forecasting for company analysis. Finally, we cover the essential equity valuation concepts and basic tools. Next, we dive deep into the world of Fixed Income. You'll understand core fixed-income instrument features. We break down complex cash flows and security types. We cover how bonds are issued and traded in primary and secondary markets. You'll learn about specific markets for corporate and government issuers. We make fixed-income bond valuation simple, focusing on prices and yields. We explain various yield and yield spread measures for both fixed-rate and floating-rate bonds. We demystify the term structure of interest rates, including spot, par, and forward curves. We thoroughly cover interest rate risk and return, including key concepts like duration and convexity. We also look at curve-based risk measures. Then, we shift focus to credit risk, teaching you credit analysis for both government and corporate issuers. Lastly, we explore the important topic of fixed-income securitization, including Asset-Backed Securities (ABS) and Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS).

What makes this book different from the rest? We know you're juggling a busy life with your studies. That's why we threw out the dense, academic language that makes other guides a chore to read. This book speaks to you in a clear, conversational tone, as if you have a personal tutor guiding you. We focus on building your intuition—the “why” behind the concepts—not just having you memorize formulas. Instead of presenting topics in a vacuum, we constantly show you how they connect. You'll see the bigger picture and understand how industry analysis feeds into valuation, or how interest rate risk and credit risk interact. This integrated approach is our secret weapon to help you tackle the complex, multi-step questions the CFA exam is known for. We get straight to the core concepts you absolutely need to know, cutting out the fluff to save you precious study time. It’s a smarter, more efficient way to prepare and build the confidence you need for exam day.

Disclaimer: This book is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by the CFA Institute. It is intended for educational purposes and is independently produced under the principle of nominative fair use. CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by the CFA Institute.