2-Week SIE Study Plan

Two weeks at about two hours a day is the schedule we’d recommend to most first-time SIE® candidates: enough time to cover all four sections on the exam’s 16/44/31/9 weighting, run two full timed mocks, and still sleep before test day. Here is the complete day-by-day calendar, with free practice questions linked for every topic.

This plan assumes no finance background. Every term gets learned from zero. If you have less runway, the 1-week SIE study plan compresses the same material into daily 3–4 hour blocks; if you have more, the 1-month SIE study plan spreads it to about an hour a day.

The Shape of the Two Weeks

Week one: Capital Markets (Section 1) and all of Products and Risks (Section 2), together 60% of the exam, ending in your first full mock. Week two: Trading and Accounts (Section 3), the Regulatory Framework (Section 4), targeted repair of your weak topics, and a second mock. Practice questions every single day; the exam tests recognition under time pressure, and only practice builds that.

Week One: The Products Half

Day 1, Regulators, SIPC, and FDIC

Meet the referees: the SEC on top, then the SROs, FINRA, the MSRB, CBOE. Learn what SIPC and FDIC each cover and, just as testable, what they don’t: SIPC protects $500,000 per customer (cash capped at $250,000) against broker-dealer failure, never against market losses. FDIC covers bank deposits, not brokerage securities. Drill regulators and SROs before bed.

Day 2, Markets, the Fed, and Offerings

Market structure (primary market = issuer gets the money; secondary = investors trade with each other), economic factors (remember the Fed fights inflation by selling Treasuries and raising rates) and offerings: firm commitment vs. best efforts, IPOs, prospectuses. Close the day with the Section 1 question set; Section 1 should now be largely banked.

Day 3, Equities

Common stock and its defining fact (last claim in a liquidation, after creditors, bondholders, and preferred) then preferred stock, rights and warrants (rights: short-term, existing shareholders; warrants: long-term, often attached to other securities), and ADRs for foreign shares.

Day 4, Debt

The inverse relationship between bond prices and interest rates is today’s headline; everything else hangs off it. Cover corporate bonds, government debt (bills, notes, bonds), municipal bonds (GO bonds backed by full faith, credit, and taxing power; revenue bonds by project revenues only) and money-market instruments.

Day 5, Options

The section people fear most, and the most learnable. Calls and puts, strike and premium, ITM/OTM (a call is in the money when the market price exceeds the strike), covered vs. uncovered, exercise and assignment, and the OCC as issuer and guarantor of listed options. Anchor concept: a protective put is insurance on a long stock position. Then drill options. Today’s practice matters more than today’s reading.

Day 6, Funds and Packaged Products

Mutual funds: open-end funds continuously issue and redeem at the next-computed NAV (forward pricing) and never trade on an exchange. Contrast that with ETFs, closed-end funds, and UITs, which do. Add variable annuities: separate-account investing, tax deferral, surrender charges.

Day 7, Remaining Products, Risks, and Mock #1

• Morning: REITs and DPPs, 529 plans and ABLE accounts (after-tax contributions, tax-free qualified withdrawals, owner keeps control) and ETNs (unsecured notes; the distinct risk is issuer credit risk). Then investment risks: diversification reduces nonsystematic risk only.
• Afternoon: your first full SIE practice exam, 75 questions, 105 minutes, timed. Don’t judge the score; week two exists to raise it. Do write down your three weakest topics.

Week Two: The Rules Half

Day 8, Orders and Trading

Order types (market, limit, stop; a sell stop triggers a market order at or through the stop price and protects a long position) plus quotes and the bid–ask spread, trading capacity (principal vs. agency), and long vs. short.

Day 9, Settlement, Dividends, and Corporate Actions

Today is stale-fact demolition day (all current as of July 2026):

• Regular-way settlement is T+1 for corporates and munis, since May 28, 2024. Materials that say T+2 are out of date.
• Under T+1, the ex-dividend date generally falls on the record date itself; the last day to buy and still get the dividend is one business day before the record date. Older books teach the pre-2024 timing. This is the most common trap we see. Drill dividends and returns until the date chain is automatic.
• Finish with corporate actions: splits, reverse splits, buybacks, tender and rights offerings.

Day 10, Accounts and Registrations

Account types: cash vs. margin (Reg T initial margin: 50% of the purchase price), discretionary vs. non-discretionary. Account registrations: individual, joint, trust, and UTMA, one custodian, one minor, gifts are irrevocable, assets transfer at the age of majority.

Day 11, Retirement Accounts and AML

Retirement accounts: traditional vs. Roth IRAs, and the RMD starting age: 73 under SECURE 2.0 (it was 72; old materials still say so). Then AML: the three stages (placement, layering, integration), CTRs on cash over $10,000 in one business day, SARs at $5,000 with suspicion, and structuring (splitting deposits to dodge the CTR) which is itself a crime.

Day 12, Prohibited Activities

The exam’s rogues’ gallery: pump-and-dump, front running, marking the close, freeriding (buying, then paying with the sale proceeds, a cash-account violation), backing away, and insider trading built on material nonpublic information. Also communications rules and Reg BI and suitability. Run the Section 3 question set tonight as your checkpoint.

Day 13, All of Section 4, Plus Repair

Section 4 is 9% of the exam and mostly memorizable thresholds. Bank these points:

• Registration and CE: the CE Regulatory Element is annual, due by December 31 each year (the three-year cycle ended in 2023); miss it and you go CE-inactive.
• Forms U4 and U5: U4 registers an associated person and must be amended promptly; U5 reports termination.
• Gifts and gratuities: $300 per person per year under FINRA Rule 3220, effective March 30, 2026, raised from the $100 limit almost every older book still prints.
• OBA and private securities transactions: outside business activity needs prior written notice (Rule 3270); a private securities transaction needs written notice, plus firm approval if you’re compensated (Rule 3280).

Spend the rest of the day on the three weak topics you wrote down after mock #1, then flip through the SIE flashcards for anything still shaky.

Day 14, Mock #2 and the One-Page Review

• Morning: a second full timed mock, the SIE exam simulator runs the real format: 75 questions, 105 minutes. Answer everything; the SIE has no guessing penalty.
• Afternoon: review misses via the explanations, trap first, rule second. Then one calm pass through the SIE cheat sheet, and you’re done. No new material after tonight.

Reading Your Mock Scores

The exam passes at 70 (scaled). If mock #2 lands comfortably above that on questions you haven’t seen before, you’re in good shape. See what to expect at Prometric and go. If you’re short, don’t panic and don’t cram: identify whether the gap is two topics or ten. Two topics is a weekend of drilling; ten means rescheduling beats a rushed attempt, especially given the retake waiting periods.

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