CMA Securities & Investment study plan

Map every regulatory body and statute named in the syllabus to its supervisory function, then recite the mapping from memory

List the core licensing, registration and conduct obligations that attach to a registered representative and explain who enforces each

Distinguish the main market-abuse offences (insider dealing, market manipulation, false trading) and identify the conduct elements of each

Write out the ethical standards framework and apply it to three short conflict-of-interest scenarios

Trace the client onboarding and know-your-client workflow from account opening through ongoing review, noting the record-keeping duty at each step

Explain complaint handling, personal account dealing and outside business activity rules and where each is most commonly breached

Practise 40 mixed regulatory and ethics questions and log every wrong answer with the underlying rule

Draft a short compliance checklist a sales desk could actually use

Compare equity instrument types (ordinary shares, preference shares, depositary receipts, ETFs) on voting, ranking and dividend rights

Describe the full trade lifecycle for equities from order to settlement and name the intermediaries involved

Price a bond from its coupon, yield and maturity, and explain the inverse price-yield relationship numerically

Classify fixed income by issuer, seniority, coupon structure and embedded options, and state the main risk for each class

Compute current yield, yield to maturity and accrued interest for three worked bond examples without reference notes

Explain the shape of the yield curve and the expectations, liquidity and segmentation theories behind it

Quantify duration and convexity effects on a bond portfolio for a 100bp rate move

Identify corporate action types (rights issue, bonus issue, split, dividend) and state the price and holding adjustment for each

Explain payoff profiles for forwards, futures, options and swaps and sketch profit and loss at expiry for each

Apply put-call parity and the main option Greeks qualitatively to a stated market view

Decompose a structured product into its underlying components and identify the embedded risk the investor is really taking

Calculate portfolio return and risk using weighted averages, covariance and the Sharpe ratio on a three-asset example

Compare the CAPM, arbitrage pricing and multi-factor approaches and state the assumptions each relies on

Evaluate a client risk profile and justify an asset allocation against it, including rebalancing triggers

Work through the three financial statements and show how net income flows to cash flow and retained earnings

Compute the key ratios (liquidity, leverage, profitability, efficiency) for one company and interpret what each signals

Value a company using discounted cash flow and a relative multiple, then reconcile why the two answers differ

Explain settlement cycles, clearing and counterparty risk, and the difference between exchange and over-the-counter settlement

Describe custody, corporate action processing and reconciliation controls, and identify where operational failures typically occur

Summarise the main valuation red flags (aggressive revenue recognition, capitalised costs, related-party transactions)

Apply suitability rules to five short client scenarios and state the recommended action and the disclosure required

Explain product disclosure, risk warnings and the boundary between advice and execution-only dealing

Run two full timed mock exams under exam conditions and record the score by domain

Rebuild a revision list from the weakest two domains and close each gap with targeted practice