FINRA SIE Exam 2026: Complete Prep Course + Practice

Explore capital markets as the economy's engine, detailing the four market types—primary, secondary, third, and fourth—and how issuers, investors and institutions interact through IPOs and venues NYSE, Nasdaq, and OTC.

Learn how regulatory entities and agencies shape the capital markets, including the SEC's authority, SROs like FINRA and MSRB, and state blue sky laws.

Explore how companies raise capital through public offerings and private placements, including IPO processes, registration, cooling-off periods, and the role of Regulation D and Rule 144.

Explore equity securities: ownership through stock, common stock with voting rights and variable dividends, and preferred stock with fixed dividends and liquidation priority. Compare equity to debt and discuss dilution.

Compare pre-emptive rights and warrants to understand their anti-dilution protection and exercise mechanics. Rights are short-term, below-market, issued to shareholders; warrants are long-term, above-market, attached to bonds or preferred stock.

Learn how restricted stock and control stock affect selling, and apply rule 144 as a safe harbor with six- or twelve-month holding periods, volume limits, and form 144.

Explore debt securities as loans to issuers—Treasury, federal agencies, corporations, and municipalities—offering fixed income, with bondholders as creditors who have priority in bankruptcy.

Explore US treasury securities—T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds—auction mechanics with competitive and noncompetitive bids, their safety under the full faith and credit, tax treatment, and maturity-related interest rate risk.

Compare strips and tips to grasp zero-coupon strips, inflation-adjusted tips, and associated phantom income taxes; learn who uses them and how inflation affects principal and payments.

Explore agency and mortgage backed securities, including Ginnie Mae’s explicit government guarantee, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac implicit backing, pass-through payments, prepayment and extension risks, and cmos with tranches.

Learn how corporate bonds differ: secured versus unsecured, callable and convertible features, credit ratings and default risk, and the bankruptcy priority order, with yield implications.

Explore municipal bonds, their tax-exempt interest, and triple tax-free benefits, plus the differences between general obligation and revenue bonds, including risk factors and the tax-equivalent yield concept.

Explore major bond risks—interest rate, credit, call, reinvestment, inflation, liquidity, prepayment, extension, and mortgage-backed securities—then see how issuer type and suitability match bonds to investors.

Define derivatives as contracts whose value derives from an asset, including stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, indexes, and volatility, and show how options, futures, forwards, and warrants enable hedging and speculation.

Master the fundamentals of options by learning calls and puts, premium, strike price, and expiration. Compare intrinsic value and time value, explore in the money, and understand the OCC role.

Distinguish long and short option positions, compute maximum gain, maximum loss, and break-even for calls and puts, and compare buyers versus writers.

Discover how mutual funds are open-end investments priced by NAV, with forward pricing and POP, and share classes A, B, and C with different loads and 12b-1 fees.

Explain how exchange-traded funds trade on exchanges, hold diverse baskets of securities, and differ from mutual funds in pricing, creation and redemption, tax efficiency, and intraday accessibility.

Compare open-end funds, closed-end funds, and UITs, highlighting closed-end trading at premium or discount to NAV and UITs' fixed portfolios with no ongoing management.

Explore hedge funds, fund of funds, and the investment company act provisions that govern these alternatives, including accreditation thresholds, exemptions, fee structures, and risks for sophisticated investors.

Understand FINRA rules protecting investors and ensuring transparency, including disclosure of financial condition and issuer relationships, suitability for direct participation programs, deferred variable annuities, options, break points, and municipal securities.

Identify and assess investment risks, including capital, credit, currency, interest rate, reinvestment, liquidity, systematic, non-systematic, political, and prepayment risk, then apply diversification, portfolio rebalancing, and hedging to protect returns.

Explore direct participation programs as pooled investments in ventures like real estate or oil and gas, featuring pass-through taxation, general and limited partners, schedule k-1, and illiquidity.

Explore how real estate investment trusts offer real estate exposure through equity, mortgage, and hybrid structures, with 90% income distribution to avoid corporate tax, plus liquidity and risk distinctions.

Compare tax-deferred and tax-free retirement accounts, distinguish qualified from non-qualified plans, with examples like traditional IRAs, 401(k)s, and Roth IRAs; cover tax treatment, withdrawals, penalties, and required minimum distributions.

Explore traditional and roth iras, their tax treatment, rmds, contribution limits, eligibility, rollovers, early withdrawal rules, and features of sep ira and simple ira.

Explore employer-sponsored retirement plans, including 401k, 403b, and 457, comparing defined contribution vs defined benefit, and mastering matching, vesting, loans, rollovers, Roth options, and rmds.

Explore fixed and variable annuities as insurance contracts with tax-deferred growth, accumulation and annuitization, surrender charges, and death benefits; understand that variable annuities are securities requiring SEC registration and licenses.

Master how to buy and sell securities using market, limit, stop, and stop-limit orders, and compare guarantees, execution, price risk, and duration from day orders to good till canceled.

Explore market structure by distinguishing primary and secondary markets, and analyze exchanges, OTC, third and fourth markets, market makers, bid and ask, spread, liquidity, and dark pools.

Link order execution, clearing, and settlement to ownership while outlining short selling and margin requirements. Explain best execution under Finra rule 5310, T plus one settlement, and circuit breakers.

Learn how to open a brokerage account with CIP verification and four data points. Understand cash and margin accounts, ownership types, discretionary rules, POA, trusted contacts, and exploitation protections.

Master KYC and suitability under FINRA rules, and apply Reg BI to broker-dealers' retail communications. Learn Form CRS requirements and the 25 retail investors in 30 days rule.

Identify prohibited trading and sales practices, including insider trading and MNPI rules. Understand penalties, outside business activities, PSTs, OBAs, gifts, and political contribution rules.

Master anti-money laundering and privacy basics, including FINRA rule 3310's five components and the three money laundering stages. Learn CTR and SAR rules with FinCEN and OFAC screening.