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Finra Series-6 Exam Topics

Finra Series-6 Exam Overview :

Exam Name: Investment Company and Variable Contracts Products Representative
Exam Code: Series-6
Certifications: Finra Products Representative Qualification Certification
Actual Exam Duration: 135 minutes
Expected no. of Questions in Actual Exam: 100
See Expected Questions: Finra Series-6 Expected Questions in Actual Exam

Finra Series-6 Exam Objectives :

Section Weight Objectives
Function 1: Seeks Business for the Broker-Dealer from Customers and Potential Customers 24% 1.1  Contacts current and potential customers in person and by telephone, mail and electronic
means; develops promotional and advertising materials and seeks appropriate approvals to
distribute marketing materials
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Standards and required approvals of public communications  
  •   Types of communications (e.g., retail, institutional, correspondence)
  •   Seminars, lectures and other group forum requirements  
  •   Product specific advertisements and disclosures  
  •   Investment company products and variable contracts 
FINRA Rules
     2210 – Communications with the Public
     2211 – Communications with the Public About Variable Life Insurance and Variable Annuities
     2212 – Use of Investment Companies Rankings in Retail Communications
     2213 – Requirements for the Use of Bond Mutual Fund Volatility Ratings
     2330 – Members’ Responsibilities Regarding Deferred Variable Annuities
 
SEC Rules and Regulations  
     Securities Act of 1933  
          Section 5 – Prohibitions Relating to Interstate Commerce and the Mails
          Section 12 – Civil Liabilities Arising in Connection with Prospectuses and Communications
          135a – Generic Advertising
          135b – Materials Not Deemed an Offer To Sell or Offer To Buy Nor a Prospectus
          156 – Investment Company Sales Literature
          482 – Advertising by an Investment Company as Satisfying Requirements of Section 10
          498 – Summary Prospectuses for Open-End Management Investment Companies
     Securities Exchange Act of 1934  
          15c2-12 – Municipal Securities Disclosure
     Investment Company Act of 1940  
          34b-1 – Sales Literature Deemed To Be Misleading
 
MSRB Rule
     G-21 – Advertising

1.2  Describes investment products and services to current and potential customers with the
intent of soliciting business
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Prospectus requirements (e.g., timeliness of information, preliminary prospectus (red herring), final prospectus)
  •   Process for bringing new issues to market (e.g., due diligence, registration statement, preliminary prospectus, final prospectus, underwriting agreement, selling group agreement, blue-sky laws and procedures)
  •   Official statements, preliminary official statements (POS), notice of sale for municipal securities
  •   Regulation D offerings
  •   Intrastate offering and securities transactions exempted from registration, including Section 3(a)(11) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 147 thereunder
 
FINRA Rules
     3160 – Networking Arrangements Between Members and Financial Institutions
     3170 – Tape Recording of Registered Persons by Certain Firms
 
SEC Rules and Regulations  
     Securities Act of 1933
          Section 2(b) – Consideration of Promotion of Efficiency, Competition, and Capital Formation
          Section 3 – Exempted Securities
          Section 17 – Fraudulent Interstate Transactions  
          134 – Communications Not Deemed a Prospectus

     Securities Exchange Act of 1934
          10b-3 – Employment of Manipulative and Deceptive Devices by Brokers or Dealers
          15c2-8 – Delivery of Prospectus  
          17a-3 – Records To Be Made by Certain Exchange Members, Brokers and Dealers
     Regulation D – Rules Governing the Limited Offer and Sale of Securities Without Registration Under the
     Securities Act of 1933
          500 – Use of Regulation D
          501 – Definitions and Terms Used in Regulation D
          502 – General Conditions to be Met
          503 – Filing of Notice of Sale
          504 – Exemption for Limited Offerings and Sales of Securities Not Exceeding $5,000,000
          506 – Exemption for Limited Offers and Sales Without Regard to Dollar Amount of Offering
          507 – Disqualifying Provision Relating to Exemptions under Rules 504 and 506  
          508 – Insignificant Deviations from a Term, Condition or Requirement of Regulation D
Function 2: Opens Accounts After Obtaining and Evaluating Customers’ Financial Profile and Investment Objectives 16% 2.1  Informs customers of the types of accounts and provides disclosures regarding various
account types and restrictions
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Types of accounts (e.g., prime brokerage, advisory or fee-based)
  •   Account registration types (e.g., tenants in common (TIC), community property, sole proprietorship, partnership, unincorporated associations)  
  •   Requirements for opening customer accounts  
  •   Retirement plans and other tax advantaged accounts  
  •   Transfers, rollovers, eligibility, distribution strategies and taxation (e.g., types of allowable contributions, distribution options, taxation of distribution at retirement, age restrictions for distributions, permissible investments)
  •   Employer-sponsored plans and ERISA (e.g., 457, defined benefit, profit-sharing, stock options and stock purchase, non-qualified deferred compensation programs)
  •   Wealth events (e.g., inheritance)
  •   Account registration changes and internal transfers
 
FINRA Rules
    4512 – Customer Account Information
    4514 – Authorization Records for Negotiable Instruments Drawn from a Customer’s Account
    4515 – Approval and Documentation of Changes in Account Name or Designation
 
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA)
 
2.2  Obtains and updates customer information and documentation, including required legal
documents, and identifies and escalates suspicious activity
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Customer screening (e.g., customer identification program (CIP), know your customer (KYC), domestic or foreign residency and/or citizenship, corporate insiders, employees of broker-dealers or self-regulatory organizations (SROs))  
  •   Information security and privacy regulations (e.g., initial privacy disclosures to customers, opt-out notices, disclosure limitations, exceptions)
  •   Account authorizations (e.g., power of attorney (POA), trust documents, corporate resolutions, trading authority, discretionary account documents)  

FINRA Rule
    2090 – Know Your Customer
    3260 – Discretionary Accounts
 
    SEC Rules and Regulations
        Regulation S-P – Privacy of Consumer Financial Information and Safeguarding Personal Information

2.3  Makes reasonable efforts to obtain customer investment profile information including, but not limited to, the customer's other security holdings, financial situation and  needs, tax status and investment objectives
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Essential facts regarding customers and customer relationships
  •   Financial factors relevant to assessing a customer’s investment profile
  •   Security holdings, other assets and liabilities, annual income, net worth, tax considerations
  •   Other considerations (e.g., age, marital status, dependents, employment, investment experience, home ownership and financing, employee stock options, insurance, liquidity needs)
  •   Investment objectives (e.g., preservation of capital, income, growth, speculation)
  •   Reasonable-basis, customer-specific and quantitative care obligations
  •   Investment strategies and recommendations to hold
 
FINRA Rules
    2111 – Suitability
    2111.03 – Recommended Strategies  
    2111.05 – Components of Suitability Obligations
    2214 – Requirements for the Use of Investment Analysis Tools
 
    SEC Rules and Regulations
    Securities Act of 1934
        15l-1 – Regulation Best Interest  
        17a-14 – Form CRS, for Preparation, Filing and Delivery of Form CRS
 
MSRB Rule
    G-19 – Suitability of Recommendations and Transactions
 
2.4  Obtains supervisory approvals required to open accounts
 
Knowledge of:
?  Required review, approvals and documentation for account opening and maintenance
?  Physical receipt, delivery and safeguarding of cash or cash equivalents, checks and securities
?  Circumstances for refusing or restricting activity in an account or closing accounts
 
FINRA Rules
    3110 – Supervision
    3120 – Supervisory Control System
 
MSRB Rule
    G-27 – Supervision
Function 3: Provides Customers with Information About Investments, Makes Recommendations, Transfers Assets and Maintains Appropriate Records 50% 3.1  Provides customers with information about investment strategies, risks and rewards, and communicates relevant market, investment and research data to customers
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Customer-specific factors that generally affect the selection of products (i.e., customer’s investment profile, including the customer’s risk tolerance, investment time horizon and investment objectives, liquidity needs)
  •   Portfolio or account analysis and its application to product selection (e.g., diversification, concentration, volatility, potential tax ramifications)
  •   Portfolio theory (e.g., alpha and beta considerations, Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM))
  •   Fundamental analysis of financial statements and types of financial statements included in an annual report, importance of footnotes, material risk disclosures and key terms (e.g., assets, liabilities, capital, cash flow, income)  
  •   Balance sheet and methods of inventory valuation: last-in, first-out (LIFO), first-in, first-out (FIFO) and methods of depreciation 
3.2  Reviews and analyzes customers' investment profiles and product options to determine that investment recommendations meet applicable standards
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Types and characteristics of underlying securities
  •   Equity securities
  •   Debt securities
  •   Options
  •   Treasury securities
  •   U.S. government agencies securities
  •   Other types of debt securities and money market instruments, including but not limited to: corporate commercial paper, brokered certificates of deposit (CDs) and banker’s acceptances
  •   Tax treatment
  •   Conduit or pipeline theory, required distribution of income and realized capital gains
  •   Capital gains and losses, dividend distributions (qualified and non-qualified), wash sales, holding periods
  •   Determination of net long-term and short-term gains or losses
  •   Packaged products  
  •   Investment companies, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), unit investment trusts (UITs)
  •   Types of mutual funds: equity, fixed-income, money market, interval
  •   Structure of investment companies (e.g., open-end and closed-end funds)
  •   Difference between retail and institutional money market
  •   Fund objectives (e.g., value, growth, income, balanced, international, sector, life cycle)
  •   Characteristics of:
  •   Open-end funds (e.g., net asset value (NAV); forward pricing; offering price; exchange privileges within families of funds; fees and expenses: no load, load (front-end, back-end), distribution fees, management fees, nature of 12b-1 fees)
  •   Closed-end funds: distributed in primary market at initial public offering (IPO) price, traded in secondary market
  •   Sales practices (e.g., dollar-cost averaging (DCA), computing sales charge, breakpoints, market timing, late trading)  
  •   Redemption (e.g., redemption price, payout or withdrawal plans, conversion privilege, restrictions, contingent deferred sales charge, tenders)
  •   Tax treatment of mutual funds
  •   Reinvestment of dividend income and capital gains distributions  
  •   Fees, charges, and expenses
  •   Variable life insurance and annuity contracts
  •   Characteristics and insurance features (e.g., minimum guarantees, death benefits, living benefits, riders)
  •   Separate accounts (e.g., purpose, management of portfolio, investment policies, performance of account)
  •   Valuation of a variable annuity contract (e.g., accumulation units, surrender value, annuitization units)
  •   Purchasing or exchanging variable annuities (e.g., immediate annuity, charges, fees, penalties, right of accumulation (ROA), waiver of premium)
  •   Annuitization: types of election, variable payout, assumed interest rate, relationship between assumed interest rate and actual rate of return
  •   Tax treatment of variable annuity contracts during accumulation period and annuity period and taxation at surrender of contract
  •   General characteristics of municipal fund securities
  •   Purpose and characteristics of specific types of municipal fund securities:
  •   Municipal fund securities including 529 college savings plans, local government investment pools (LGIPs), ABLE accounts
  •   Change in beneficiary, rollovers, ownership, tax consequences of unqualified withdrawals 
FINRA Rules
    2320 – Variable Contracts of an Insurance Company
    2341 – Investment Company Securities
 
SEC Rules and Regulations
Securities Exchange Act of 1934
15g-1 – Exemptions for Certain Transactions
Investment Company Act of 1940
    Section 2(a) – General Definitions
    Section 6 – Exemptions
    Section 8 – Registration of Investment Companies
    Section 8(b) – Registration of Investment Companies
    Section 10 – Affiliations or Interest of Directors, Officers and Employees
    Section 11 – Offers of Exchange  
    Section 12 – Functions and Activities of Investment Companies
    12b-1 – Distribution of Shares by Registered Open-End Management Investment Company
    Section 13(a) – Changes in Investment Policy (Prohibited actions for registered investment companies)
    Section 16(a) – Board of Directors (Election of directors)
    Section 18 – Capital Structure
    Section 19 – Dividends
    19a-1 – Written Statement to Accompany Dividend Payments by Management Companies
    19b-1 – Frequency of Distribution of Capital Gains
    Section 22 – Distribution, Redemption, and Repurchase of Redeemable Securities
    22c-1 – Pricing of Redeemable Securities for Distribution, Redemption and Repurchase
    22d-1 – Exemption from Section 22(d) to Permit Sales of Redeemable Securities at Prices Which
    Reflect Sales Loads Set Pursuant to a Schedule
    22d-2 – Exemption from Section 22(d) for Certain Registered Separate Accounts
    22e-1 – Exemption from Section 22(e) During Annuity Payment Period of Variable Annuity
    Contracts Participating in Certain Registered Separate Accounts
    Section 23 – Distribution and Repurchase of Securities: Closed-End Companies
    Section 30 – Periodic and Other Reports; Reports of Affiliated Persons
    Section 35 – Unlawful Representations and Names
    35d-1– Investment Company Names
    Section 36 – Breach of Fiduciary Duty
    Section 37 – Larceny and Embezzlement
 
MSRB Rules
    D-12 – Definition of Municipal Fund Securities
    G-45 – Reporting of Information on Municipal Fund Securities
 
 
3.3  Provides required disclosures regarding investment products and their characteristics, risks, services and expenses
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Required disclosures on specific transactions (e.g., material aspects of investments, statement of additional information, material events, control relationships)
  •   Types of investment risk (e.g., call, systematic and nonsystematic, reinvestment, timing)
  •   Types of investment returns (e.g., tax-exempt interest, return of capital)
  •   Costs and fees associated with investments (e.g., markups, commissions, net transactions, share classes, non-discretionary fee-based accounts, surrender charges, 12b-1 fees, mortality and expense charges in variable products, soft dollar arrangements)
  •   Tax considerations (e.g., unification of gift and estate taxes, lifetime exclusion, annual gift limit, taxation of securities received as a gift, inheritance of securities)
  •   Market analysis considerations (e.g., market sentiment, market indexes, market momentum, available funds)
 
FINRA Rule
    2165 – Financial Exploitation of Specified Adults
 
3.4  Communicates with customers about account information, processes requests and retains documentation
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Customer confirmations and statements, including components, timing, mailings to third parties, and exceptions
  •   Account value, profits and losses, realized and unrealized
  •   Customer account records (e.g., updating for change of address, sending required notifications, investment objectives)
  •   Books and records retention requirements
  •   Account closure procedures

FINRA Rules  
    2231 – Customer Account Statements
    2232 – Customer Confirmations
    2273 – Educational Communication Related to Recruitment Practices and Account Transfers
    4510 – Books and Records Requirements
    11870 – Customer Account Transfer Contracts
 
SEC Rules and Regulations  
Securities Exchange Act of 1934  
    10b-10 – Confirmation of Transactions
    17a-4 – Records To Be Preserved by Certain Exchange Members, Brokers and Dealers
    17a-8 – Financial Recordkeeping and Reporting of Currency and Foreign Transactions
 
MSRB Rules
     G-8 – Books and Records To Be Made by Brokers, Dealers, and Municipal Securities Dealers and Municipal Advisors
     G-9 – Preservation of Records
     G-15 – Confirmation, Clearance, Settlement and Other Uniform Practice Requirements with Respect to Transactions with Customers
     G-26 – Customer Account Transfers
Function 4: Obtains and Verifies Customers’ Purchase and Sales Instructions; Processes, Completes and Confirms Transactions 10% 4.1  Provides current quotes
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Orders, offerings and transactions in customer accounts
  •   Trade execution activities
  •   Best execution obligations
 
FINRA Rule
    5310 – Best Execution and Interpositioning
 
SEC Rules and Regulations  
Securities Exchange Act of 1934  
    15g-4 – Disclosure of Compensation to Brokers or Dealers
 
4.2  Processes and confirms customers’ transactions pursuant to regulatory requirements and informs customers of delivery obligations and settlement procedures
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Delivery requirements and settlement of transactions
  •   Information required on an order ticket (e.g., symbol, account number, price)
  •   Use of automated execution systems
 
FINRA Rules
    5330 – Adjustment of Open Orders
    6140 – Other Trading Practices
    11000 Series – Uniform Practice Code
 
SEC Rules and Regulations  
Securities Exchange Act of 1934  
    15c6-1 – Settlement Cycle
 
Federal Reserve
    Regulation T – Credit by Brokers and Dealers
 
MSRB Rule
    G-12 – Uniform Practice
 
4.3  Informs the appropriate supervisor and assists in the resolution of discrepancies, disputes, errors and complaints  
 
Knowledge of:
  •   Erroneous reports, errors, cancels and rebills
  •   Requirements for addressing customer complaints and consequences of improper handling of complaints
  •   Methods of formal resolution (e.g., arbitration, mediation, litigation)
  •   Form U4 reporting requirements

FINRA Rules
    4513 – Records of Written Customer Complaints
    4530 – Reporting Requirements  
    8000 Series – Investigations and Sanctions
    12000 Series – Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Disputes
    13000 Series – Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Disputes
    14000 Series – Code of Mediation Procedure
Official Information https://www.finra.org/registration-exams-ce/qualification-exams/series6

Updates in the Finra Series-6 Exam Topics:

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