Learn · Series 7
Orientation
Read the four functions as a workflow: finding business, opening accounts, working with investments and customer information, and processing instructions. The published guides below develop background for reading issuer information and understanding product risks; they do not cover every function or replace FINRA’s outline.
Candidates must pass both the SIE and Series 7 under FINRA Rule 1220(b)(2). Series 7 candidates also must be associated with and sponsored by a FINRA member firm or another applicable SRO member firm.
| Section | Official title | Weight | Scored items |
|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Seeks Business for the Broker-Dealer from Customers and Potential Customers | 7% | 9 |
| F2 | Opens Accounts After Obtaining and Evaluating Customers’ Financial Profile and Investment Objectives | 9% | 11 |
| F3 | Provides Customers with Information About Investments, Makes Recommendations, Transfers Assets and Maintains Appropriate Records | 73% | 91 |
| F4 | Obtains and Verifies Customers’ Purchase and Sales Instructions and Agreements; Processes, Completes and Confirms Transactions | 11% | 14 |
| Total | 100% | 125 |
Read and apply
7 guides · selected background reading
An issuer’s reported result, the structure of a security and a customer’s circumstances are separate inputs. Start by learning what the financial statements can establish. Then examine the product’s terms and how financing or execution can change the exposure. This sequence helps you avoid carrying an accounting observation straight into an investment conclusion. For example, a company can report higher earnings without that fact alone establishing the timing of its cash flows or the suitability of a security for a customer. Read the guides’ limitations as carefully as their examples. These background readings do not provide the customer-account, communications, recommendation or transaction-processing rules required by the full Series 7 outline.
Published · Beginner
Start with the issuer’s evidence. Separate the period’s reported results from management’s outlook and identify the comparisons each figure actually supports.
Published · Beginner
Add the point-in-time view. Read assets, liabilities and equity together, and distinguish a balance at a date from activity over a reporting period.
Published · Beginner
Connect reported profit with cash. Follow the guide’s calculation and definition limits before comparing companies that label a measure differently.
Published · Intermediate
Examine a debt instrument next. Separate its coupon from its market yield and explain why a change in price matters to a buyer.
Published · Intermediate
Read the contract before considering a strategy. Identify the right, strike and expiration, and distinguish holding an option from owning the underlying shares.
Published · Advanced
Then examine financing. Trace how borrowing changes exposure, losses and the possibility of a forced exit rather than treating leverage as extra buying power alone.
Published · Beginner
End with the instruction. Distinguish a quote, an order condition and an execution; an analysis of an issuer is not itself an instruction to trade.
Further reading
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Recommended reading
2026/2027
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