Every examinable component of CAIA Level II, and where it sits in these notes. Use this to confirm nothing is missing before you start revising.
Weights are approximate published bands and rotate between cycles — confirm against the current CAIA Level II Study Guide and Candidate Handbook for your sitting. The Study Guide's learning objectives are the definitive scope statement.
| Topic area | Weight | Covered in |
|---|---|---|
| Emerging Topics | ~10% | Topic 1 — digital assets, ESG/climate, AI & alternative data, democratization, private credit & secondaries, ILS |
| Universal Investment Considerations | ~4% | Topic 2 — megatrends, CMAs, role of alternatives, scenario & regime thinking |
| Models | ~10% | Topic 3 + 13 · credit models and 14 · term structure |
| Institutional Asset Owners & Investment Policies | ~10% | Topic 4 — endowments, pensions/LDI, SWFs, insurers, family offices, IPS, OCIO |
| Risk & Risk Management | ~10% | Topic 5 + 10 · PE risk & cash-flow at risk |
| Methods for Alternative Investing | ~10% | Topic 6 + 11 · unsmoothing and 10 · pacing |
| Accessing Alternative Investments | ~10% | Topic 7 + 12 · commodity products, 13 · FoF & replication |
| Due Diligence & Selecting Managers | ~7% | Topic 8 + 10 · PE ODD, 13 · HF ODD |
| Volatility & Complex Strategies | ~9% | Topic 9 + 13 · volatility, correlation & dispersion |
| Ethics & Professional Standards | tested | Topic 15 — Standards I–VII, Asset Manager Code, applied alternative-investment cases |
| Part / chapters | Covered in |
|---|---|
| Part 1 — Asset allocation & institutional investors (1–6) | Topic 16 (chapter depth) + Topic 4, Topic 6, Topic 2 |
| Part 2 — Private equity (7–13) | Topic 10 |
| Part 3 — Real assets (14–21) | Topic 11 |
| Part 4 — Commodities (22–24) | Topic 12 |
| Part 5 — Hedge funds & managed futures (25–34) | Topic 13 (incl. regulation & compliance) |
| Part 6 — Structured products (35–36) | Topic 14 |
Every formula the exam can reasonably ask you to apply sits in the formula sheet, grouped as: performance and risk-adjusted return; VaR, CVaR and risk decomposition; factor and credit models; allocation, unsmoothing and risk budgeting; private markets and fee waterfalls; real assets and commodities; options, Greeks and volatility; asset owners and spending rules; real-asset and private-market mechanics; and commodities, credit and insurance-linked.
The computations most reliably tested: fee and waterfall arithmetic, IRR versus multiples, overcommitment and pacing, unsmoothing variance and beta, VaR and CVaR, component versus marginal VaR, cap rate decomposition, roll and total-return decomposition, hazard-rate survival, distance to default, and option payoff and Greek reasoning.
Confusion-pair drills sit at the end of every topic page — 15 sets in total, which is the fastest way to convert passive recognition into exam-ready recall.