5/18/2012 The Halfway Point
As I’ve mentioned, my wife’s been going through a lot of my flashcards, and it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. She’s actually started memorizing some of the cards – not just the answers, but also the questions. She’ll turn to me over breakfast, for example, and ask, “What are the five C’s of credit?” or “CAMELS: what does it stand for?”
It’s frustrating that she sometimes knows the answers better than I do. This is because she is better at mnemonics and other memory devices. She tries to teach me her methods, but because we have very different learning styles, it’s often not as helpful as she thinks it will be for me. She is a culture and English language instructor and has given courses on independent learning methods. However, her Masters dissertation is coming due soon, so she will have less time to review my flash cards and discuss study techniques with me.
Chapter 9: Financial Risk Management
The focus here is foreign exchange and hedging. It was a challenging chapter even though the concepts are familiar to me from my work experience. I was glad to finally learn the actual difference between a future and a forward, as we never used futures in our hedging policy. The currency information for emerging markets was new to me, and much different than that of Canada, Australia and the US.
Chapter 10: Payment Systems, Collections and Disbursements
This chapter contains everything you ever wanted to know about types of payments systems, lockboxes, and select international banking systems. This was the longest chapter so far and it is packed with detailed information. I finally did learn what all the numbers and coding on the bottom of a check finally meant – but can I remember the specifics on test day?
Chapter 11: Money Markets, Short-Term Investing and Borrowing
This short chapter was a great break after chapter 10! It covers short-term investing and money markets. Once again, the information is all very US oriented, but it’s still quite similar and relevant to the Canadian market. This chapter is also very heavy on formulas, but these ones are much more detailed than Chapter 5. They will take some practice for me to be able to recall them, but they are definitely doable.
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