AMIB Asesor en Estrategias common mistakes
AMIB Asesor en Estrategias · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Confusing the registration and authorization regimes: treating a broker-dealer (casa de bolsa) authorization, an investment adviser registration, and the registration of securities in the RNV as if they were the same requirement, or assuming a fund's authorization covers its adviser.
Candidates memorize the names of the main statutes (Ley del Mercado de Valores, Ley de Sociedades de Inversión) but not which authority grants which act, so they collapse distinct regulatory approvals into one.
What to do instead
Build a one-page matrix with rows for entities (casa de bolsa, asesor en inversiones, sociedad operadora de fondos, sociedad distribuidora) and columns for who authorizes, what discretionary conduct is permitted, and which disclosure obligations attach; review it before every practice set.
Reading a central bank policy decision as automatically determining the direction of the yield curve, and answering bond-price questions from the headline rate change rather than from the change in the relevant maturity and the duration-adjusted effect.
Candidates carry a simple heuristic ('rates up, bonds down') and skip the step of identifying which part of the curve moved and how the instrument's duration translates that into a price change.
What to do instead
For each macro question, force three explicit steps in writing: what happened to the policy rate, what happened to the curve at the instrument's maturity, and what the modified duration implies for price.
Computing a bond's price or yield sensitivity using time to maturity instead of duration, or using Macaulay duration where modified duration is required, producing a percentage price change that is off by the coupon-adjustment factor.
The formulas look similar and candidates under time pressure grab the first duration figure they recall instead of matching the formula to the question's wording.
What to do instead
Practice a fixed drill: convert Macaulay to modified duration by dividing by (1 + yield/frequency), then apply percentage price change = -modified duration x change in yield; do ten of these until the conversion is automatic.
Valuing a stock by applying a P/E multiple to the wrong earnings base, or mixing trailing and forward earnings, currency, and share count within a single calculation.
Candidates know the multiple approach conceptually but do not check that numerator and denominator are on the same basis, which is the most common source of silent arithmetic error.
What to do instead
Before computing, write down the earnings basis (trailing or forward), the currency, and the share count, and verify the multiple selected comes from a comparable set with the same basis.
Describing a forward or swap as eliminating risk, or failing to distinguish the payoff of an option buyer from that of the writer when explaining a hedging strategy to a client scenario.
Candidates learn the mechanics of derivatives but not the risk-transfer direction, so they answer from the vocabulary of 'hedging reduces risk' instead of tracing who bears the loss in each state of the world.
What to do instead
For every derivative question, draw a two-state payoff table (up scenario, down scenario) with columns for buyer and writer, and state explicitly which party's loss is capped and which is open-ended.
Treating the net asset value of a fund as if it were a guaranteed redemption price, or ignoring the difference between a fund's stated fees and the total expense ratio actually charged to the investor.
Candidates conflate the accounting value of the portfolio with the investor's realizable outcome and do not separate sales charges, management fees, and ongoing expenses.
What to do instead
Rehearse a worked example: starting NAV, front-end load, annual expense ratio, and exit, computing the investor's net return; then answer fund questions only after classifying each cost as one-time or recurring.
Selecting the highest-expected-return portfolio in a risk-return question without locating it on the efficient frontier or checking the investor's stated risk tolerance and horizon.
Candidates default to return maximization because it is the easiest quantity to compare, forgetting that the exam tests suitability against a stated objective.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed answer order: identify the objective and constraint from the prompt, eliminate portfolios below the required return or above the risk budget, then choose among the remainder on the efficient frontier.
Producing a financial plan recommendation that ignores the client's liquidity needs, tax position, or existing insurance coverage, and recommending a product before establishing the client's profile.
Candidates treat planning questions as product-selection questions and skip the discovery and diagnosis stages that the exam expects to see reflected in the answer.
What to do instead
Answer planning scenarios in the mandated sequence: gather data, state objectives and constraints, analyze the gap, recommend, and monitor; if any of the first steps is missing from the reasoning, the recommendation is premature.
Failing to recognize a conflict of interest in a scenario, such as receiving compensation from a product provider while advising a client, and recommending the product without disclosure or without considering a lower-cost alternative.
Candidates read the scenario for the technical answer and treat the compensation detail as background, missing that the question is testing conduct rather than calculation.
What to do instead
Scan every ethics item for compensation, referral, or personal-account details first, and answer by identifying the conflict, the disclosure owed, and the client-first alternative before evaluating the product.
Using material nonpublic information or front-running a client order in a scenario because the question frames it as a routine trading decision rather than an ethics violation.
Candidates separate 'market knowledge' from 'insider information' by source rather than by materiality and nonpublic status, so they do not flag the conduct as prohibited.
What to do instead
Apply the two-part test explicitly on every trading scenario: is the information material, and is it nonpublic; if both, the conduct is prohibited regardless of how the information was obtained or how routine the trade appears.