Constant Change

What I love about the investment industry is that things constantly change. Just when I had woven Oracle into the fabric of several textbooks based on its stubborn anti-dividend policy, I open up my account this morning and see that I've received a darned cash dividend from Oracle! Don't get me wrong--I'll gladly cash the check. It's just that nothing stays the same for very long in this industry. When we get comfortable quoting FDIC coverage at $100,000, the industry raises it to $250,000, but maybe only temporarily. One year the lifetime gift credit is $1 million, next year maybe it's $1.5 million. What does this mean for your exam? Probably nothing. Your exam stays out of the fray by focusing on the concepts that remain the same year after year. Rather than asking you to recite the current lifetime gift credit amount, the exam prefers to see if you understand the concept. Rather than asking if qualified dividends are taxed at 15%, the exam would likely make up its own tax rate and ask you to figure somebody's after-tax return.
So, don't sweat the ever-changing facts connected to the industry yet. You can just study for your exam and worry about staying on top of all the changing rules and realities over the span of your career. And, we publish updates at www.passthe65.com/updates and www.passthe66.com/updates if we think it's necessary.