Many FINRA exams test your knowledge of leading lagging and coincident indicators. The challenge with these is that there is no easy acronym to remember and no good memory tricks.
In today’s post, we give our best advice on how to tackle these easy points to get… and to miss!
Leading Lagging and Coincident Indicators: Studying Smarter
At Professional Exam Tutoring, we have searched far and wide for a good memory trick. Alas, we continue to come up short (if you have one, please write us!).
The next best thing, however, is a good study strategy.
Although we have no memorable acronym to share, our strategy is fairly simple. We highly recommend that you focus on the lagging and coincident indicators.
In other words, try to know those indicators inside and out. The reason is that the lagging and coincident indicators are the hardest to differentiate from each other. Most people can identify many of the leading indicators since intuitively they seem to make sense.
The lagging and coincident indicators, however, our harder to separate.
For example, is the industrial production index, a coincident, or a lagging indicator?
You would assume that you need industrial production figures to calculate the industrial production index, which means that you need to collect the data, and then create the index – which one would assume describes the past and is a lagging indicator.
However, this one represents a coincident indicator!
Why These Matter?
These economic indicators can be tested on numerous FINRA exams. They can show up on the SIE Exam, Series 7 Exam, Series 86 Exam, Series 79 Exam, among others.
When you come across them during the exam, you would rather get this easy point than miss it. Every point matters as some people learn the hard way.
Spend a few days per week over a four week period of studying and memorizing these indicators will really help you pick up that extra free point.
The good news is that you only need to memorize two (lagging and coincident) out of the three lists. Fortunately, the coincident and lagging indicators happen to be the shortest lists.
For any more tips and tricks, feel free to reach out. Good luck!