One-Page Cheat Sheet

This is the whole book at a glance. It assumes you have already worked through the units; each line is a memory jog, not a first lesson. If a line reminds you that you forgot something, go back to that unit's rapid-fire sheet.

Registration & Personnel Management (Function 1, 6%)

• Broker-Dealer Registration: Broker means agent; dealer means principal. Registration spans federal, self-regulatory and state authorities. Form BD handles registration, BDW withdrawal and BR branches. Remember FINRA's 14 admission standards, the 25% ownership-change trigger, material business changes and two-year retained jurisdiction. Apply the correct conviction clock. SIPC advances may supplement returned customer property; investment value is not insured.
• Associated Person Registration: An associated person is anyone the firm controls or is controlled by, plus its principals and employees, but registration only attaches when that person also engages in the securities business, so the two-tier test is your first move on any personnel question. Lock the filing windows cold: Form U5 within 30 days, a statutory-disqualification Form U4 amendment within 10 days, 2 years of retained jurisdiction, 5-year residential and 10-year employment history, and the December 31 Regulatory Element deadline. Fingerprinting turns on access to securities, money, or records; statutory disqualification turns on any felony or a securities-related misdemeanor within 10 years; and a disqualified person stays only through a firm-filed Form MC-400 and NAC-approved heightened supervision.

General Broker-Dealer Supervision (Function 2, 30%)

• Written Supervisory Procedures and Controls: Every firm establishes, maintains, and enforces a supervisory system on seven pillars, documented in WSPs and scaled to size and risk under the reasonable-review standard. Offices are classified as OSJ, branch, or non-branch, with OSJs and supervising branches inspected annually and everything else at least every three years, always by an independent inspector filing a written report. Three layers stack: the supervisory system, internal supervisory controls (tested, reported to senior management, enhanced above $200 million gross revenue), and the CEO's annual certification (preceding-12-month CCO meeting, report to the board and audit committee by their next meetings or within 45 days, if earlier). Round it out with a written business continuity plan (BCP) covering 10 elements plus customer fund access, two ECPs, current CRD and FCS filings, and electronic access to the FINRA Manual.
• Conduct of Associated Persons: Commercial honor is the catch-all, reaching everything. The antifraud rule (scheme, misstatement/omission, fraudulent course of business) is the federal bedrock: $5 million/20 years individual, $25 million entity, criminal penalties. No misuse of customer assets: unauthorized borrowing, guarantees against loss, or sharing without written approvals and proportionate contribution (family waives proportionality, never firm approval). Fiduciary-derived holder data may solicit only on the issuer's behalf. AWARE-of-MNPI trading is insider trading unless a prearranged, pre-awareness plan shields you; misappropriation reaches non-insiders; firms owe information barriers, backed by treble-damage controlling-person liability; manipulation rules, the 25% buyback safe harbor's four daily conditions, 10-day record-date notice, 30-day outside-account window, and 5-and-10-business-day transaction-review reports for investment-banking firms.
• Compensation Practices: Networking arrangements put a registered broker-dealer inside a bank: written disclosures always, oral disclosure when the account opens on premises, physical separation, and only a one-time nominal referral fee to bank staff. You cannot pay anyone who should be registered, except a retiring rep's continuing commissions under a pre-retirement written contract or a qualifying foreign finder's pay for non-U.S. clients it directs to the firm. Non-cash compensation is four categories built on total production, sales contests must credit products equally, the gift cap is $300 per person per year (formerly $100) aggregated firm-wide and a floor beneath stricter pay-to-play rules, order acceptance is never clerical, and every dollar ties back to a per-AP transaction record.
• Product and Service Supervision: Every new product clears a committee (approve, disapprove, table): reasonable-basis suitability, customer-specific matching, and quantitative surveillance. Variable-contract pay generally flows through the firm, with a narrow direct-payment exception; deferred variable annuities get a 7-business-day principal review before transmission. Investment Company Act sets fund classes (UITs, no board), the 75-5-10 test, 12b-1 caps, and forward pricing. Convertibles and warrants are equity securities; commodity futures are not. Regulation A runs $20 million and $75 million tiers; restricted stock carries holding-period, volume limits. The Trust Indenture Act governs public debt indentures; new business lines need a membership application filed first.
• Disciplinary Actions and Customer Disputes: Firms keep written customer complaints at the OSJ for at least 4 years, file per-event reports within 30 days (theft or forgery, regulatory actions, settlements over $15,000 for a registered person or $25,000 for the firm, statutory disqualifications), and file the quarterly roll-up by the 15th of the month after quarter-end. FINRA investigations (2-year tail over former APs, sanctions menu, refuse-to-respond bar) feed the Code of Procedure (Hearing Panel decides by majority, 25-day appeal to the National Adjudicatory Council, then FINRA Board, SEC, and the courts). Private disputes split into binding arbitration (customer's unilateral right, non-waivable industry mandate, $50,000-or-less simplified track) and voluntary, non-binding mediation, which never stays a pending arbitration. Expungement needs an arbitration finding under one of three standards plus court confirmation.
• Books and Records: The umbrella rule folds SEC recordmaking and retention rules into FINRA jurisdiction: a format failure is a standalone FINRA offense, and the longer period controls. Records made: per-office recordkeeping designations, dual sign-off on accounts, and the compliance architect record. Records preserved: manuals (3 years after superseded), WORM-or-audit-trail storage, a third-party-or-executive-officer access undertaking, plus independent outsourced-record access. Retention ladder: 6 years default and customer account information, 4 years complaints, 3 years negotiable-instrument authorizations (first 2 years easily accessible). Nonresident firms keep US copies producible within 14 days. Withdrawing firms hand records to an associated person or another FINRA member on Form BDW. The taping rule catches firms concentrating disciplined-firm reps (40%/4/20% by size), with a one-time 30-day cure and a 60-day setup.
• Financial Responsibility and Funding: Financial responsibility stacks overlapping floors and triggers. Net capital sets liquid-asset minimums ($250,000 carrying, $50,000 or $5,000 introducing, $1,500,000 prime broker, $1,000,000 executing broker, $100,000 market maker, $25,000 mutual fund retailer) and ratio (15:1 Basic, 2% debits Alternative). The customer protection rule segregates customer securities via possession or control and holds net customer credits in Special Reserve Bank Account, weekly (daily at $500 million+ average credits). FOCUS and 150/120/100 ladder inform regulators. Reg T sets 50% initial margin and 90-day cash freeze; FINRA sets 25%/30% maintenance; repealed Pattern Day Trader rule is now intraday-margin-deficit. Hypothecation caps pledging at customers' aggregate debit balances; SIPC advance limits are separate from returned-property recovery.

Customer-Related Activities (Function 3, 21%)

• Account Opening and AML: Onboarding stacks three layers: customer-account information collects identity and contact data (the principal signs to accept, updated every 36 months, kept 6 years after closure), the Customer Identification Program verifies four elements and holds records 5 years after closure, and the anti-money-laundering program stands on five pillars. Two Bank Secrecy Act filings run the exam: the Currency Transaction Report for cash over $10,000 within 15 days (objective) and the Suspicious Activity Report at $5,000 within 30 days with suspicion (strictly confidential, tipping off is a crime). Office of Foreign Assets Control screens sanctions, FinCEN takes the filings, the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS) moves accounts on a customer-signed form the firm cannot obstruct, and Regulation S-P and Regulation S-ID guard information from the inside and impersonators from the outside.
• Communications with the Public: Classify by the 25-retail/30-day count: institutional-only is institutional, 25 or fewer retail is correspondence, over 25 is retail. Retail needs pre-use principal approval; correspondence and institutional need supervisory review, unfiled. Routine filings use 10 business days: after first use for listed products; before first use for self-created rankings, security futures, and first-year members' public-media retail ads, subject to exclusions. Bond fund volatility ratings stay post-use. Content must be fair, balanced, not misleading; fund ads show standardized 1/5/10-year returns and the prospectus advisory. Telemarketing runs 8 a.m.-9 p.m. where called, with two DNC layers. Concentrated disciplined-firm hires trigger taping; records run 3 years, 6 for accounts; anti-touting bars paying to move a security's price through published content.
• Recommendations and Disclosures: Know your customer gathers the essential facts, then Reg BI governs retail recommendations through its four obligations (Disclosure, Care, Conflict, Compliance) while suitability's three layers govern institutional ones; Reg BI ranks above suitability and requires explicit cost consideration. Price fairly under the 5% guideline, get written order-by-order consent for retail net transactions, deliver Form CRS and the annual disclosure stack, document discretion with three writings, approve day trading under the intraday-margin-deficit framework that replaced the repealed pattern-day-trader rule, never keep a sale below a breakpoint to earn the higher charge, and recognize, investigate, escalate, and document red flags. Nail the customer split and the numbers, and this unit answers itself.

Trading & Market Making (Function 4, 21%)

• Order Entry, Routing, and Execution: A firm constrains trading with written, enforced trader mandates and Regulation SHO aggregation units that net long/short separately at the desk level, making markets with two-sided quotes inside the Designated Percentage, under a 20-business-day withdrawal suspension. Regulation SHO marks every sale long, short, or short exempt; demands a documented locate before order entry; closes out short fails T+1, long T+3; and imposes the alternative uptick rule on a 10% intraday drop. Regulation NMS and best execution govern routing, protected quotations, and market-center/broker-dealer reports. The market access rule blocks naked sponsored access via CEO-certified annual controls; LULD (15-second breach, 5-minute pause) and circuit breakers (7%, 13%, 20%) cap volatility; and the supervisor must detect/escalate prohibited conduct or own the supervisory-system failure.
• Settlement and Clearance: The UPC is the street-side rulebook for OTC trades, stepping aside for continuous net settlement (CNS), municipals, exempted securities, mutual funds, or direct participation programs (DPPs). Members send Uniform Comparisons by trade-date end; a don't know (DK) notice answers missing comparisons within one business day, else DK'd. Regular way settles T+1 (cash same day; firm-commitment deals priced after 4:30 p.m. Eastern go to T+2). Good delivery needs the right unit and medallion-guaranteed assignment; seller cures defects. Bonds accrue interest 30/360 for corporates and municipals, actual/actual for governments. Marking to market demands a deposit on an uncompleted contract. Close-outs: buy-ins by noon Eastern two business days out for seller fails, sell-outs same day, no notice, for buyer fails; reclamation runs 15/45 days or 30 months.
• Trade Reporting: After any off-exchange execution the firm reports the trade to the right FINRA facility on time: NMS stock goes to a TRF or the ADF, OTC equity to the ORF, and debt to TRACE, with equity reports due within 10 seconds and TRACE within 15 minutes, each short sale carrying its short-sale mark. On top of the tape print, CAT captures the full order lifecycle, due by 8:00 a.m. ET on T+1 with clocks synced within 50 milliseconds of NIST. Recordkeeping runs underneath: written principal approval for account-name changes, error corrections that add a second record rather than overwrite, blotters kept 6 years, CAT member data 3 and clock logs 5, plus the penny-stock friction layer (Schedule 15G before the trade, per-trade signed agreement, principal account approval) for every non-exempt customer.

Investment Banking & Research (Function 5, 21%)

• Investment Banking Activities: A public offering runs pre-filing (no offers), waiting (oral offers, red herring, no sales), post-effective (final prospectus, sales begin); effectiveness defaults day 20 after last amendment; underwriters get due-diligence defense. Private deals use Regulation D (accredited thresholds, 35 non-accredited cap, Form D 15 days), Regulation S offshore, or Regulation A, resold via restricted-securities or QIB safe harbors. FINRA reviews compensation (corporate-financing rule), requires disclosure plus QIU or other route for conflicts (5% net proceeds), bars restricted-person new-issue buys and spinning; allows flipping. Regulation M sets restricted period for disclosed, price-capped stabilization; watch lists confidential, restricted lists firm-wide. Tender offers run 20+ business days; a 5% crossing triggers Schedule 13D within five business days. 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K reports; Reg FD guards disclosure; bankruptcy pays secured first, common last.
• Investor Disclosure Materials: A registered deal runs pre-filing (no offers, the gun-jumping rule), the waiting period (oral offers plus written offers limited to a red herring, a tombstone, or a free writing prospectus, no sales), then post-effective (sales begin; access-equals-delivery via EDGAR satisfies final-prospectus delivery duty at confirmation). Pre-filing safe harbors (WKSI issuer-only, the 30-day no-offering-reference shield, regularly-released information, the proposed-offering notice, generic advertising) carve out limited talk. Lock the FWP mechanics (filed at first use, legend, three-year records; non-seasoned issuers need a prelim first), the non-participating-broker research safe harbor, and aftermarket day-counts (25 listed IPO, 90 non-listed, 40 non-reporting follow-on, 0 reporting follow-on) plus the 48-hour IPO preliminary rule, and this unit answers itself.
• Research Activities: A research report is written analysis of an equity or issuer sufficient to base a decision on, and once a communication crosses that line, the conflicts rule walls research off from investment banking: no IB pre-publication review, no IB-driven pay from a committee that excludes IB, anti-retaliation, and personal-trading limits. Every report gets Supervisory Analyst (Series 16) approval and prominent front-page disclosures (firm-wide 1% ownership, IB compensation past 12 and next 3 months, ratings distribution). Stay off the air 10 calendar days after an IPO and 3 after a secondary (EGCs exempt), publish during a deal only inside the different-class or regular-coverage safe harbor in the regular course, certify each report and each quarter under Reg AC, and keep the soft-dollar safe harbor to eligible research, hard-dollaring the ineligible portion.

That's the whole exam on one page. If you can read each line and hear the full unit behind it, you're ready.