I am having trouble understanding derivative from CFAI book. I went through some of the IFT videos. The lecturer has explained it in a very simple way with more emphasis on the formula. My concern is that in the actual exam the questions may not be straight forward formula based. Any suggestion on how I should go through the derivative portion? Thanks
Yeah it’s a real b*tch, completely agree with you (I actually value/trade equity and index derivatives in my job and still much of this is challenging to follow)! Feel like this section of the curriculum is pretty poorly written. I’ve been watching MM videos for this topic, then I guess it’s just about smashing out as much practice as possible.
The notation adopted recently by CFA Institute appears to be designed specifically to make the topic impenetrable.
Have you tried using Mark Meldrum?
It really isn’t too bad if you spend the time on it - it’s kind of like most math - spend the time and then it clicks. Interestingly, I found the FRA overwhelming but others say it’s easy! As an alternative resource for derivatives, you could look into the old SOA Exam MFE material.
Have you tried searching for that kind of book in Amazon?
Thanks for the reply…quick followup question…are you studying from curriculum or schweser. I mean after watching videos do you read curriculum or schweser.
You mean it’s even worse than the dirty, smelly, nasty, vile, evil, tax-cheating, wife-swapping, devil-worshipping formulas from my day??? 
The SOA recently renamed this exam to IFM, in case anyone is looking for it on the SOA website.
I’m using the official curriculum in conjunction with MM videos. I borrowed a friend’s Schweser books from a previous year but have found them to be too condensed for the content (used Schweser for LI with good success but really just feel like the added depth of LII warrants the greater detail in the CFAI books).
Forget the CFAI derivatives books. Save time and tears and buy Mark Meldrum’s derivatives videos+ notes. Worth every penny.