Guidance for Standards I-VII Quiz

Candy Ling, CFA, attended a networking event where she overheard an influential analyst from a rival firm mention that he will likely be upgrading his recommendation of TAPSI Corp to a BUY in the following week. Right after the event, Ling heads back to her office and calls all her clients and encouraged them to buy TAPSI shares. In the following week, TAPSI shares rose 20% after the release of the recommendation. Those clients who heeded her call made good profits and some of them bought her gifts as a token of their gratitude.

Ling LEAST likely violated the Standard relating to:

Ted Johnson, CFA, attended a conference where he met Susan Fletcher, an independent researcher, who shared with him details of an unpublished valuation model she is working on. Intrigued, Johnson reproduces the model and back-tested it using public stock data provided by Bloomberg. Johnson went on to write a research paper on this model and the results that he gathered. In the paper, Johnson neither credited Fletcher for the model, nor Bloomberg for the data. Which of the follow statements is MOST accurate?

Chung Nguyen, CFA, has been assigned to write a research report on VMW Inc. Nguyen’s brother-in-law is a high level executive of VMW, and Nguyen personally owns 10,000 shares of VinnyCorp, the parent company of VMW. If Nguyen publishes the research report on VMW, he must disclose:

Miguel Santos, a CFA Level II candidate, works in a brokerage firm where employees are allowed to allocate to themselves IPO shares with permission from the firm. The country he works in has no specific rules or regulations restricting his participation in IPOs. Santos’ employer is currently distributing shares of an IPO for JNJ Corp. Is Santos allowed to receive any of the IPO shares?

Hikari Oshiro, CFA, is a portfolio manager for high net worth individuals. Tomiyuki Furuta, one of her new clients, has offered her a fully-paid luxurious vacation to Hawaii if his portfolio outperforms the Nikkei 225 Index by more than 3% for the next year. Oshiro wrote an email to her manager detailing the arrangement and asking for consent. At a team meeting the next day, the manager gave Oshiro a verbal consent for the arrangement. Oshiro then goes on to meet Furuta and both parties sign an agreement for the arrangement. Which of the following statements is MOST accurate?

Torsten Lehmann, CFA, is an analyst and has recently moved on to a new firm. Back at his previous firm, Lehmann was in charge of analysing a pharmaceutical company called CellMax, and has published a number of reports recommending the stock. At his new firm, Lehmann decides to recommend CellMax stocks to his new clients, and reproduces his recommendation based on what he can recall and data from public sources. Lehmann has:

Domicio Perea, a CFA Level I candidate, is a newly-hired junior broker at Justly Brokerage. 2 months into the role, Perea noticed that one of his seniors has been allocating trades which transacted at better prices to the company’s preferred clients. Perea reported this to his supervisor, who told him off and said that there is nothing wrong as different levels of service is allowed. Perea feels that his supervisor is wrong and decides to report this to the regulators. Which of the following statements is MOST accurate?

Merci Loiselle, CFA, is a financial advisor who has entered into an agreement with a tax consultant, Larry Foley. Under the agreement, Loiselle will receive a flat fee of $500 from the tax consultant for every successful client referral. After signing the agreement, Loiselle emails her employer with just the following lines:

“I would like to request for permission to enter into a referral agreement with Larry Foley. Under the agreement, I would be compensated for every client of mine that I refer to him for tax consultancy.”

Loiselle LEAST likely violated the Standards because:

Taj Clare, CFA, is an analyst from Infinitee Investments. When researching on TFBE Corp, Clare learns from an employee that TFBE made a bad investment in Egypt and may have to record a massive write-down in the coming quarterly report, and this has not been disclosed by the company. Clare was deeply disturbed by this finding and believes it is true, but is pressed by his manager to quickly come out with a report. Which of the following actions is LEAST likely a violation of the Standards?

Before flying off to a conference, Tiago Sousa, CFA, an investment analyst accessed his company email on a public computer at the airport and forgot to logout. Before boarding the flight, Sousa realised he forgot to logout and quickly rushed back to the public computer. He realised that there has been unauthorised access to one of his emails, which contains material nonpublic information about Tannin Corp, a public-listed company he is writing a research report on. Sousa quickly logs out and keeps quiet about the incident. Sousa has:

Jason Cornwell just passed the CFA Level III exam. He decides to update his CV with his latest status while applying for the CFA charter. Which of the following is LEAST likely a violation of the Standards?

As the head of wealth management, Joanne Phillips, CFA, takes compliance by the staff very seriously. She mandates that all new staff have to go through 3 full days of compliance training, and the compliance manuals are updated constantly with the latest rules and regulations and placed prominently in the office for the staff to refer to. Recently, one of the staff under Phillips violated a new compliance procedure, which he claims he is unaware of. Investigation, however, revealed that the compliance manuals have been updated with the new compliance procedures at the time when the staff committed the violation. Phillips has:

Janet Watson, a CFA Level II candidate, works at the trading desk of a brokerage firm, of which her husband has an ordinary account with. Watson happened to chance across a pending change in recommendation for OptionPlus stock from a ‘Hold’ to a ‘Buy’, which is to be disseminated to all clients simultaneously by email the next day. Which of the following actions would NOT be considered a violation of the Standard?

Zhiming Cao, CFA, is an analyst who covers Goggles Corp for his employer. Goggles recently announced plans to acquire Yafoo Inc. Cao is unfamiliar with Yafoo, so he approaches his colleague Caitlin Blake, CFA, who covers the company. Blake hands him some of the recent research reports she has written on Yafoo, and Cao copies sections of her reports into his own report for Goggles Corp to highlight the impact of the acquisition for the company. Cao failed to credit Blake in the report. Cao most likely violated the standard on:

Thomas Kim, CFA, an analyst was invited by SunMax Corp, a solar energy company, to visit the company’s latest solar plant and write a report for the company’s upcoming IPO. Kim accepted the request and flew down to the plant on the company’s private jet as it is in a remote location. After the visit, the company executives treated Kim to a thank you lunch at the company’s cafeteria. Before leaving, Kim was given a $10,000 cheque for writing the report, and was told there would be a bonus payment if the IPO is a success.

Kim most likely violated the Standard on Independence and Objectivity because:

Devadas Chaudhury, CFA, recommended to his client, Hamsa Nita, to buy shares of Quentel Corp as his analysis shows that the stock is undervalued. One year after Nita bought Quentel shares based on Chaudhury’s recommendations, the share price dropped by 50% and made Nita very upset. However, Chaudhury still believes that the stock is very undervalued and that the price is falling only because of the illiquidity. He uses his own money to buy large amounts of the stock and the stock price rose by 80% and that made Nita less upset with him. Has Chaudhury violated the Standards?

Dana Wilson, CFA, is an independent portfolio manager. At a meeting with a prospective client, Wilson presented the asset-weighted returns for all the accounts that she has managed over the past 10 years, including terminated accounts. Wilson also presented the general format of her investment process. Before the meeting ended, Wilson promised that given her track record, it is guaranteed that the prospective client will not lose money.

Given that this was all that was presented to the prospective client, which of the following Standards did Wilson violate?

Standard I(C): Misrepresentation
Standard III(D): Performance Presentation
Standard V(B): Communication With Clients and Prospective Clients

Aabha Sree, a CFA Level III candidate, recently joined a special IPO allocation team in his company, which is a special group that decides how to allocate IPO shares into clients’ accounts. See realises that John Wynn, one of the team members tend to allocate some shares of oversubscribed IPOs to his own personal account. Sree understands that such behaviour is a violation of the Standard on Priority of Transactions, and confronts Wynn about it. However, Wynn says that this is not a violation of any local laws, the company allows it, and he is not a CFA member or candidate. According to the code and standards, Sree:

After the CFA Level I exam, Peter Ashworth posted the following statements in an online forum CFAChat.

“Sob, the exam was much tougher than I anticipated.”

“Nevertheless, I’m so glad that there wasn’t too many questions on bond durations as I didn’t understand them at all!”

“I didn’t have enough time to finish all the questions. I feel that CFA Institute should reduce the number of questions as it emphasises more on speed and guesswork than on understanding.”

How many of the 3 statements violated the Standards?

Fabio Barbosa, CFA, a financial advisor tells his colleague in the legal consultancy team that his client, Wendy Tonya, was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and would like to leave all her assets to Arknow Children’s Foundation and has instructed him to help draft the will. Barbosa also told the colleague that Tonya has a son, but she refuses to leave anything for him as he is an unfilial son who spends money gambling and womanising.

Barbosa has:

In a marketing brochure, FaithFull Advisors chose to highlight 3 of the staff for their association with CFA Institute with the following statements.

A. “Mandy Choo has passed all 3 levels of the CFA exams consecutively in 2016, 2017, and 2018. She will be eligible to apply for the CFA charter once she fulfils the relevant working experience.”

B. “Giano Veenvliet is a Chartered Financial Analyst who has more than 20 years experience in the wealth management industry.”

C. “Eryu Yamamoto, CFA Level III candidate, has passed the level II exam and will be enrolling for the level III exam next year.”

How many of these statements are a violation of the Standards?

Jeremy Lenkins, CFA, was recently made the Head of wealth management in a large consumer bank. 3 months into the job, Lenkins discovered that the compliance procedures of the firm did not fully meet the regulatory requirements. Lenkins brought up the issue to the bank’s management, and was told that they will look into the matter in 9 months time when the bank’s restructuring efforts are completed. To comply with the Code and Standards, Lenkins should:

Having made extensive research into the Australian office space market, Melvin Crease, CFA, published a research note with the following wordings:

“Based on the fact that the Australian economy will slow down in the next 3 years, there will be an oversupply of office space in Australia. I am therefore downgrading the Australian Office REITS sector to UNDERPERFORM.”

Which of the Standards did Crease violate?

Greg Downing, CFA, was hired by the trustees of SpinEnergy Corp’s pension assets to manage the company’s pension plan. When voting proxies for the stocks held in the pension fund, Downing has the duty to vote in the best interest of:

Johnny Maloney, CFA, senior analyst at Hesed Research, was approached by Milton Hotels to write an independent research for the company for a fixed fee. Maloney agreed and sent a written note to his manager, informing him of the arrangement. After visiting Milton Hotels, Maloney writes a report on Milton Hotels with a ‘BUY’ recommendation, making clear in the report that the report was sponsored by Milton Hotels, and the amount that was received as payment for the report. Maloney:

Katharina Vogt, CFA, has a deep interest in the pharmaceutical industry and often goes for the industry’s conferences. While in the toilet at one such conference, Vogt overheard executives from LiBio Corp saying that “a large shipment of Corazon will arrive next week”. Intrigued, Vogt googles and finds out that Corazon is the raw material to manufacture anti-depressant drugs. Vogt also finds from public sources that LiBio put out an ad asking for volunteers to a clinical trial with regard to mental health.

Vogt theorises that LiBio is likely to enter the anti-depressant market, which is highly lucrative and will become a strong profit driver for the company. Vogt quickly writes up a research note and recommends LiBio stock to her clients. She also buys some for her own account after sending out the recommendation.

Which of the following statements is most accurate?

Toby Williams, a Level III CFA candidate and financial advisor, has worked out an agreement to refer his clients who require brokerage services to Andy Linh, a local stockbroker. In return, Williams will receive exclusive research reports and articles which will benefit his clients. There is no money or gifts involved in the referral arrangement.

Based on the Code an Standards,

Ted Halibut, CFA, was approached by a Professional Conduct Program (PCP) staff who requested for the confidential account information of one of his clients to aid in an investigation of a complaint received by CFA Institute. Which of the following actions is a violation of the Standards?

Jeffrey Morgan, CFA, is a wealth manager with several high net worth clients. At a regular client meeting, the client on the spur of the moment decides to treat Morgan to a lavish 5-course dinner which cost $1000. Morgan promptly accepts the treat. After the meal, Morgan heads home and decides to email his supervisor to inform him of the treat. Morgan has:

Lionel Lee, CFA, received a text message from Julia Mayson, a client and personal friend, that she is getting a divorce and is worried about custody of her children. Lee happened to be with a mutual friend at that time and told her about Mayson’s divorce. Lee also told the mutual friend that Mayson is his client, and that her account is a joint account with her husband so there may be some complications. If Lee has not received permission from Mayson to release the information, he has violated the Standard on preservation of confidentiality:

Tyler Wilson, CFA, is an activist against gambling and would often organise mass demonstrations outside certain casinos. Wilson has in the past been arrested by the police for harassing casino staff during such demonstrations. Wilson also discourages his clients from owning casino stocks, and would often encourage them to sell the casino stocks in their portfolio. Wilson most likely violated:

Ikumi Miyake, a Level I CFA Candidate, has trouble remembering the Gordon Growth Model formula, so she scribbles it on a small piece of paper and intends to hide it in her jeans pocket to bring into the exam hall. However, when she was outside the exam hall, she saw some examiners ask candidates to empty their pockets in front of them. She got scared and decided to take one last look at the formula, and threw the piece of paper away before entering the exam hall. When the exam started, Miyake quickly writes down the formula from memory on the exam paper as she was afraid she might forget. Miyake most likely:

Kevin Johnson, CFA, published the following research note on SolidBNB shares.

“SolidBNB has been experiencing a stable 20% growth in bookings, and we expect that to continue for the next 3 years. Using the Gordon growth model with an expected dividend growth rate of 6%, we arrive at an intrinsic value of $22.67 for the company’s stock. Based on its current price of $15.30, we recommend a BUY on the stock.”

Which of the following statements is MOST accurate?

Fandy Husein, a Level II CFA Candidate, is an investment advisor from Unity Advisors. The parent company, Unity Investments, is the sole underwriter for an upcoming IPO of BoxConn Manufacturing (BCM), and Husein received a memo from his manager to market the IPO to his clients. Husein emails the IPO prospectus and research reports on BCM to all his clients at the same time. One day after sending out the email, he selectively calls a few of the clients to check with them if they are interested in the IPO. Husein also posted the IPO prospectus and research reports on several Facebook groups and investment forums to increase awareness of the IPO. Husein has:

Philip Thomas, CFA, is a senior analyst at PFFT Research.

(A) Thomas also sits on the board of Capricorn Financials, a public-listed investment bank.
(B) Thomas volunteers to manage a local hospital trust fund where the beneficial owners is the hospital management. The trust fund owns a sizeable amount of Capricorn shares.
(C) Thomas recently ran into financial difficulty, with a firm suing him for a failed business venture.

If Thomas were to write a research report on Capricorn Financials, he is required to disclose under the Standard on Disclosure of Conflicts items _________ in the report.

Guilbert Babin, CFA, is a citizen of StrictLand, where brokers are not allowed to allocate IPO shares to themselves under any circumstances. Babin moves to work as a broker in RelaxLand, where there is no law or regulation against brokers allocation of IPO shares to themselves. Babin’s firm also has no rule against brokers allocating IPO shares to themselves.

Which of the following statements is most accurate?

Safiy Mustafa, a wealthy oil tycoon, is in poor health and wishes to start divesting his wealth to various charities. He consults his wealth manager, Terry Seinfeld CFA, about it. Seinfeld told Mustafa that he is not the best person for this, so Mustafa agreed to let Seinfeld refer an Estate Planner to him. Seinfeld calls his friend who is an estate planner, Mary Wong, and told her that his client Mustafa is very ill and wishes to start divesting his wealth to various charities. Wong agrees to take on this role and gives Seinfeld a sumptuous treat to thank him for referring the client to her. Seinfeld did not tell Mustafa about the treat because he did not think it as a referral fee.

Seinfeld most likely:

Leonard Shelton, CFA, attended an analyst conference call by Sonia Technologies. At the end of the conference, the company mistakenly plays a product launch video of a secret new product that is only meant to be released next week. Shelton and all the analysts in the room caught a glimpse of the video. After the conference call, several rumour websites started reporting and speculating on this new product. Upon seeing that the information has spread, Shelton immediately upgrades his recommendation of Sonia stock to a BUY, and randomly calls some of his clients to encourage them to buy the stock.

Shelton has violated the Standard on:

A. Material Nonpublic information
B. Suitability
C. Diligence and Reasonable Basis

Jules Durand, CFA, developed a bond valuation model while he is employed at KPT Investments. Durand documented the assumptions made regarding the model and the reasoning behind using parameters such as coupon rate, interest rate expectations and inflation expectations. Before he left KPT to join a new company, Durand made a copy of all the documents related to the model and uploaded them to his personal cloud drive. However, he found that he did not require the model in his new job, so he deleted the files eventually. Durand most likely:

Gerben Henrard, CFA, is a senior analyst with Strive Investments. Due to his reputation, Henrard was approached by the local university to teach undergraduates the basics of investment analysis every Tuesday and Friday evening for 2 hours each. The university proposed a significant compensate package. After much consideration and having gotten permission from his employer, Henrard accepts the role.

Which of the following statements is most accurate?

Rebecca Miller, CFA, is the portfolio manager for the Large-cap Income Fund of Pursuance Investments. Recently, a colleague at Pursuance, Wilson Barth, introduced to her a growth stock which he thinks it holds great long-term potential. Miller studied the stock and did her own analysis, and agreed with Barth’s finding. Miller started buying the growth stock in large quantities, and this buy subsequently helped the Fund beat its benchmark by 5% for the year. Miller:

Weixiang Zhang, CFA, is a wealth manager with PKR Asset Management. Betty Ashworth has been a client of Zhang for many years and trusts him to manage her non-discretionary portfolio. Zhang sends Ashworth quarterly account statements, and meets her at the start of each year to find out if there are any changes in objectives and situation, and make changes to her IPS and account accordingly. In July last year, Zhang saw a unique opportunity in Emerging Market (EM) stocks and quickly raised the proportion of EM stocks in Ashworth’s portfolio from 0% to 25% without informing her. At the next meeting, Ashworth learnt that her account had performed exceedingly well because of the shift to EM stock, so she was very pleased with Zhang.

Zhang LEAST likely violated the Standard on:

Manzo Tsuji, CFA, is a financial advisor with Ganbatte Advisors. On a recent train ride to Osaka, Tsuji overheard some executives discussing quietly that Yukio Yamada is under a private investigation for fraud. Tsuji went on LinkedIn and found out that Yukio Yamada is the CFO of Taksan Corp. Tsuji got alarmed by the news as many of his clients hold large positions in Taksan shares. Tsuji decides that he should act in his clients interest, so he quickly sends a text message to those clients saying “Please sell your Taksan Corp shares immediately. I can’t divulge why, but trust me.”

Which of the following statements is most accurate?

William Evans, CFA, covers the energy sector for his company, Levine Research. Evans conducts several customer interviews and on-site company visits, and acquires secondary research from other analysts for his work. Levine Research does not have any record-keeping system, so Evans will keep all the records in one cabinet and some soft copies in his laptop without a proper filing system. However, Evans makes sure that he mentions the source of his research in his reports. Evans most likely:

Anita Corbell, a CFA Level II candidate, was tasked to find a manager for the pension assets of Weida Inc, a corporate client of her employer. Corbell shortlisted 8 firms based on their annual total return performance, and decided to award the job based on which firm has the highest annual total return for the past 5 years. Totalitee Investments was eventually selected because it has the highest annual total return. After the agreement was signed, Totalitee gave a pair of tickets to a luxury cruise as a token of appreciation. Corbell promptly accepted and notified her employer about the gift. Which of the following statements is most accurate?

Kennedy Investments published a promotional pamphlet to let prospective clients understand its past performance, investment process, and quality of advisors. The following two statements which reference CFA Institute was found in the pamphlet:

“All our advisors are CFA Charterholders who passed all 3 levels of the CFA Exam.”

“The CFA program is a rigorous study program in the field of investment management so passing the exams shows the competence of our advisors.”

How many of the statements violate the Standard on Reference to CFA Institute, the CFA Designation, and the CFA Program?

Gwen Patterson, CFA, works for Tiptop Investments where she manages a mutual fund. In the latest quarterly performance report, the fund performance was published as having beat the benchmark by 1%. Two months after the report was published, Patterson realised that there was an error in the calculation and the fund actually underperformed the benchmark by 0.5%. She decided that since there is just one month until the next quarterly report and it is too costly to reprint all the reports, she will just overlook the mistake.
Which of the following Standards did she LEAST likely violate?