Learn · SIE
Orientation
Use the official weighting table to identify the four areas of the SIE, then work through the published guides below to connect the vocabulary to financial news. This is a library orientation page, not a course or question bank.
Passing the SIE alone does not register a person with a FINRA member firm. FINRA says a passing result is generally valid for four years.
| Section | Official title | Weight | Scored items |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Knowledge of Capital Markets | 16% | 12 |
| 2 | Understanding Products and Their Risks | 44% | 33 |
| 3 | Understanding Trading, Customer Accounts and Prohibited Activities | 31% | 23 |
| 4 | Overview of the Regulatory Framework | 9% | 7 |
| Total | 100% | 75 |
Read and apply
6 guides · selected background reading
Start with who receives the money in a transaction, then identify the instrument being traded, and only then consider its risks and how an order works. Those are different questions: recognizing an ETF does not explain its holdings, and knowing an order type does not tell you whether a price is attractive. The sequence below makes those distinctions explicit. After each guide, explain the distinction in your own words. Where a guide includes sources, open them to check the underlying definitions and rules. Use FINRA’s outline to identify the areas these background readings do not cover, including registration, prohibited activities and account rules; a short reading path is not a substitute for the full outline.
Published · Beginner
Begin with the transaction: distinguish capital raised by an issuer from a trade between investors. Use the guide’s worked example to follow where the proceeds go.
Published · Beginner
Apply that distinction to a public offering. Separate the offering price and proceeds from the price investors later pay in secondary trading.
Published · Beginner
Identify what an investor owns. Compare a company share, a fund holding and a benchmark before treating them as interchangeable market exposures.
Published · Intermediate
Move from ownership to debt. Work through the relationship between a bond’s price and yield while keeping the coupon separate from the return at a purchase price.
Published · Beginner
Compare the risks of an individual holding with those of a portfolio. Explain which concentration risk can be reduced and why losses remain possible.
Published · Beginner
Finish with execution. Distinguish the displayed quote from a completed trade, and explain how a price condition changes what an order can accomplish.
Further reading
Independent bookstore picks via Bookshop.org. Education first — not a shopping mall.
Recommended reading
2027/2028
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