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A Kavanah Course — Free · 5 modules · Foundational
Twenty lessons covering the general-knowledge exam that opens every securities registration — and the only one you can take without a sponsor.
A complete preparation course for the SIE, the co-requisite half of every representative registration and the one exam anyone aged 18 or over may sit without a firm behind them. It covers the four published sections — capital markets, products and their risks, trading and customer accounts, and the regulatory framework — weighted to FINRA's own item allocation, with every outside-world claim traced to the rule, the regulation or the statute behind it. Designed to be read before the Series 7 course in this catalogue, which assumes this material rather than repeating it.
An Introduction
What the SIE covers, how it is weighted, and where it leads.
Until 2018, breaking into the securities industry had a circular problem: you could not take a qualification exam without a firm sponsoring you, and firms preferred to hire people who had already shown they knew something. FINRA's exam restructuring split the qualifications in two to break that circle. The general knowledge everyone in the industry needs became the Securities Industry Essentials exam, open to anyone aged 18 or over. The specialist knowledge became a top-off exam that still requires a sponsor.
Twenty lessons across five modules, built against FINRA's published content outline. Each lesson is nine to eleven minutes of reading, ends with the takeaways in the form the exam tests them, and cites the primary sources behind every claim it makes about the outside world — the FINRA rulebook, the Code of Federal Regulations, the United States Code, TreasuryDirect and the SEC's own investor-education material.
That sourcing matters more than it sounds. Exam preparation material has a long tradition of confident assertion, and securities rules move: the settlement cycle, the retake waiting periods, the continuing education cadence and the accredited investor definition have all changed recently enough that older material is wrong about them. Where this course states a number, you can go and check it.
What it is not: it is not affiliated with, endorsed by or produced in cooperation with FINRA, the SEC, NASAA or the MSRB, and it contains no actual exam questions.
FINRA publishes the item allocation and it is uneven. Understanding Products and Their Risks carries 33 of the 75 scored items — 44 percent. Understanding Trading, Customer Accounts and Prohibited Activities carries 23, or 31 percent. Knowledge of Capital Markets carries 12, and the Overview of the Regulatory Framework carries 7.
Products and trading together are 56 of 75 items. So this course gives products seven lessons and trading and accounts five, with three on the market and the regulators, two on economics and three on the regulatory framework and the study process.
The SIE rewards breadth rather than depth. No single topic carries enough weight to be worth mastering at the expense of coverage, which is the opposite of the Series 7 and changes how you should study — lesson 5.3 explains how.
A pass is valid for four years for registration purposes, and on its own it registers you with nobody. It pairs with a top-off exam: the Series 7 for a general securities representative, the Series 6 for investment company and variable contract products, the Series 79 for investment banking, and several others.
If you already have a sponsoring firm, this course is the first half of your study window and the Series 7 course in this catalogue is the second. If you do not, the SIE is the part of the credential you can go and earn today, and it is a genuine signal to a hiring manager that you understand the industry's vocabulary and its rules before anyone has spent money training you.
Either way, do not let it go cold. The overlap between this material and the Series 7's is largest in the first month after you pass.
Everything in this course is a rule someone wrote after something went wrong. Learning it as a list of facts is possible and slow; learning it as a set of answers to specific failures is faster, sticks better, and is the difference between passing the exam and being useful once you are through the door.
Module 1
What the SIE tests, who regulates what, and where trading happens
3 lessons · ~31 min
The exam's structure and weighting, the statutes and regulators, the market participants, and how securities are issued and traded.
Lesson 1.1 · 9 min
What the SIE Is, and Why It Exists
The one securities exam you can take before anyone hires you
Start lesson
Lesson 1.2 · 11 min
Regulators and Market Participants
Who makes the rules, and who does what in the market
Start lesson
Lesson 1.3 · 11 min
Market Structure and Offerings
Primary and secondary markets, and how a new issue reaches investors
Start lesson
Module 2
Monetary and fiscal policy, the cycle and its indicators
2 lessons · ~18 min
Who sets rates and who sets taxes, the tools and the rates that get confused, the four phases of the business cycle, and the indicators and sectors that track it.
Module 3
Forty-four percent of the exam, in seven lessons
7 lessons · ~1 hr 11 min
Equity, debt, government and municipal securities, packaged products, options, the alternatives, and the named investment risks that run across all of them.
Lesson 3.1 · 10 min
Equity Securities
Common, preferred, rights, warrants and ADRs
Start lesson
Lesson 3.2 · 11 min
Debt Securities
Coupons, yields, ratings, and the corporate and money market instruments
Start lesson
Lesson 3.3 · 10 min
Government and Municipal Securities
Treasuries, agencies, and the two kinds of municipal bond
Start lesson
Lesson 3.4 · 11 min
Packaged Products
Investment companies, ETFs and variable contracts
Start lesson
Lesson 3.5 · 10 min
Options Basics
Rights, obligations, moneyness, and the four positions
Start lesson
Lesson 3.6 · 9 min
REITs, DPPs and Private Funds
The products outside the ordinary wrappers, and what that costs the investor
Start lesson
Lesson 3.7 · 10 min
Investment Risks
The named risks, which products carry which, and what diversification can and cannot fix
Start lesson
Module 4
How a trade completes, whose account it lands in, and what may never be done
5 lessons · ~50 min
Orders and settlement, account types and registrations, anti-money laundering and records, communications and the standard of care, and the prohibited practices.
Lesson 4.1 · 10 min
Orders, Settlement and Corporate Actions
How an instruction becomes a completed trade
Start lesson
Lesson 4.2 · 10 min
Customer Accounts
Account types, registrations, and who may give instructions
Start lesson
Lesson 4.3 · 10 min
Anti-Money Laundering, Books and Records, and Privacy
Knowing the customer, keeping the record, and protecting the information
Start lesson
Lesson 4.4 · 10 min
Communications and the Standard of Care
What may be said to the public, and what must be true of a recommendation
Start lesson
Lesson 4.5 · 10 min
Prohibited Activities
Manipulation, insider trading, and misusing the customer relationship
Start lesson
Module 5
The rules that apply to you rather than to the products
3 lessons · ~28 min
Registration and continuing education, employee conduct and reportable events, and a four-week study plan for the exam itself.
Lesson 5.1 · 9 min
Registration and Continuing Education
Who must register, what disqualifies, and what keeps a registration alive
Start lesson
Lesson 5.2 · 9 min
Employee Conduct and Reportable Events
The forms, the disclosures, and the thresholds you have to know by heart
Start lesson
Lesson 5.3 · 10 min
Preparing for the SIE
A four-week plan, the question patterns, and what to do next
Start lesson