It's all coming together.

Thirty-eight percent of Level I takers and forty-two percent of Level II'ers have reason to feel pretty good about your lives this morning. Your studying was worth it, your plans are right on track, the promise land is so close you can taste it. The rest of you are likely feeling less good. Your (hours and days and weeks and months) of studying did not end up being worth it, you're right back where you started, and the path to the quote ultimate honor unquote--the land of milk and honey and stacks of CFA exams in need of grading, as high as the eye can see-- seems littered with insurmountable obstacles. Your family and friends and colleagues told you they never wanted to hear those three little letters in that sequence again but if you need to vent, we're listening. You're safe here.

Rochdale analyst Dick Bové loves fairy tales as much as the next guy. He loves the romance, he loves the drama, he loves the idea of magical footwear. Does he start every morning asking the question, "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest analyst of them all?"? Yes. Does he consider Mike Mayo and Meredith Whitney his evil step-sisters? Yes. Does he dream about being awoken from his slumber by a handsome prince? But even Dick knows that five minutes after the prince wakes you up you're going to be bitching to your girlfriends about being stuck with this asshole who lets the dishes pile up like you're the god damn maid service. Everyone knows that when the handsome prince kissed the beautiful Snow White she awakened and everyone lived happily ever after. “It’s in the book” said comic John Standley when discussing another one solution character Little Bo Peep. This “one solution fits all,” or what I like to call the Snow White Syndrome, is a core belief of most who look at the financial crisis. There are three examples of this in today’s press: Just about everyone is unhappy that the EU leaders could not solve all of the European debt problems with one single solution – i.e., creating Euro Bonds that absorbed all individual country debt. In today’s Financial Times Senator Sherrod Brown (OH, Dem.) and Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher have a single solution to the nation’s banking problem – i.e., break up the big banks. The Wall Street Journal has a different single solution to the problems in banking – i.e., eliminate hedging in bank portfolios. Then there are the other big-time single solutions: The central banks in the North Atlantic Communities believe that by printing money economic woes will go away. Conservatives argue that by cutting taxes, this nation’s economic woes will disappear. The President and Congress believe that by passing laws the economic cycle will be eliminated (“kinda” like the dot-comers who had already eliminated the economic cycle in the 1990s). The Snow White Syndrome is everywhere. We only need to find that prince with the potent lips. The problem, of course, is that no single solution quickly arrived at is likely to achieve the results promised. Snow White Syndrome [Rochdale Research]