A practical CSI Advanced Investment Strategies (AIS) study plan: 30-day intensive, 60-day balanced, and 90-day part-time schedules aligned to the official chapters and exam weightings.
AIS is broad but manageable if you follow a repeatable loop:
Read → summarize into rules/formulas → drill questions → review misses → repeat.
CSI lists 60 – 80 hours of study for AIS. Here’s a practical translation into a timeline:
| Weekly study time | Timeline | Total hours (approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| 18–20 hrs/week | 30 days | 72–80 |
| 9–11 hrs/week | 60 days | 72–88 |
| 5–7 hrs/week | 90 days | 60–84 |
| Week | Chapters / topics | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ch. 1–4 (Client, discovery, risk profile, process) | Build your constraint checklist; drill behavioural bias questions. |
| 2 | Ch. 5–6 (Fundamental + technical analysis) | Ratios + valuation intuition; practice “what matters in the scenario?”. |
| 3 | Ch. 7–9 (Debt, mutual funds, alternatives) | Fixed-income sensitivity + fund selection; focus on structure/liquidity risks. |
| 4 | Ch. 10–14 (Intl/tax, solutions, risk protection, impediments) | Currency/tax basics + overlays; finish with mixed sets and review weak areas. |
| Weeks | Chapters / topics | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ch. 1 (Wealth accumulation market) | Learn stages/cohorts and what changes constraints. |
| 2 | Ch. 2 (Discovery + marketing) | Build discovery scripts and risk discussion framing. |
| 3 | Ch. 3 (Risk profile + behavioural) | Bias diagnosis + questionnaire limitations; drill small sets. |
| 4 | Ch. 4 (Portfolio process) | Asset allocation by stage; rebalancing basics; monitoring triggers. |
| 5 | Ch. 5 (Fundamental analysis) | Macro/industry/company; ratio interpretation; resource company notes. |
| 6 | Ch. 6–7 (Technical + debt) | Technical indicators + curve/duration intuition. |
| 7 | Ch. 8–9 (Funds + alternatives) | Fees/turnover, mandate fit, liquidity; alternatives structures and suitability. |
| 8 | Ch. 10–14 (Intl/tax + solutions + risk + impediments) | After-tax + currency; portfolio solutions checklists; finalize with mixed review. |
| Weeks | Chapters / topics | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | Ch. 1–3 | Build client discovery + risk profile notes; drill weekly. |
| 4 | Ch. 4 | Allocation process + monitoring; make checklists. |
| 5–6 | Ch. 5–6 | Fundamentals + technical; ratio/valuation practice. |
| 7–8 | Ch. 7–8 | Debt + mutual funds; selection and risk trade-offs. |
| 9 | Ch. 9 | Alternatives; liquidity/structure suitability checklist. |
| 10 | Ch. 10–11 | International + taxation; currency/tax friction basics. |
| 11 | Ch. 12–13 | Portfolio solutions + risk protection; overlays and risk tools. |
| 12 | Ch. 14 + mixed review | Impediments + compounding; mixed sets and miss log cleanup. |
Sources: https://www.csi.ca/en/learning/courses/ais/curriculum and https://www.csi.ca/en/learning/courses/ais/exam-credits