What topics does the CFA cover ?

The Chartered Financial Analyst body of knowledge represents a definitive finance body of knowledge. Having mastered all these topics you can be certain that there won’t be much in finance that you will not be able to do.

The CFA Institute publishes on their website the full list of finance topics they are as follows:

Ethical & Professional Standards
Material covers developing and appropriate level of professional and ethical standards. The course material takes you through many examples of situations which would require ethical and professional judgement.

Quantitative Methods
Material covers developing a solid knowledge of quantitative analysis, which will be used in later chapters of the material. Areas of interest include Time Value of Money, Probability, Sampling, Correlation, Time Series Analysis, and Technical Analysis, with an emphasis on application of these principles.

Economics
Material covers Microeconomic, Macroeconomic and Global Economic Analysis.

Financial Statement Analysis
Material covers a framework for financial statement analysis, Accounting income and Assets, Statement of Cash Flows, Analysis of Cash Flows, World wide accounting diversity and International Standards, Analysis of Financial statements, Dilutive securities and Earnings per Share, Analysis of inventories, Long Term Assets Analysis of income taxes, Analysis of Off-Balance sheet debt.

Corporate Finance
Material covers Capital Budgeting, Cost of Capital, Capital structure and leverage, Dividends and Dividend Policy, Governance of Listed Companies,

Analysis of Equity Investments
Material covers the asset allocation decision, an introduction to Portfolio management and asset pricing models, the Functioning of securities markets, market indexes and efficient capital markets.

Portfolio Management
This section details security valuation, Industry Analysis, Equity Concepts and Techniques, Company Analysis and Stock Valuation, technical Analysis and Price Multiples.

For a complete list of learning outcomes please refer to the CFA institute website