Welcome to Collection of Data: the first unit of Function 1 and the gateway to nearly half the Series 79 exam. Before bankers can model anything, they have to know where the data lives, what it shows, who is allowed to talk to whom, and what disclosures the issuers, insiders, and institutional investors on the other side have already filed.
Exam Weight: Part of 49% / 37 items (Function 1)
Video Resources
What You'll Learn
In this unit, you'll cover:
- Sources of Data: Commercial subscription platforms (Bloomberg, FactSet, Capital IQ, Refinitiv), proprietary firm databases of past deals, regulatory filings on EDGAR, company investor relations sites, and financial media, plus the categories of data those sources surface (financial, performance, issuance, transaction)
- Analytical Use of Collected Data: How collected data feeds industry and market trend analysis, individual company review, comparable company analysis (trading comps from public peers), relative valuation positioning, and precedent transaction analysis (transaction multiples from past M&A deals)
- Exchange Act Reports, Schedules, Statements, and Forms: The periodic issuer reports (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, transition reports), ownership filings (Schedules 13D and 13G) with their shortened deadlines, the Form 13F institutional holdings report, proxy filings (Schedule 14A), and the insider-reporting regime (Forms 3, 4, 5)
- Permissible Communications: External (Clients): How bankers gather and verify modeling inputs from clients, the coordination requirement with legal and compliance when material nonpublic information (MNPI) is involved, and the role of confidentiality agreements
- Permissible Communications: Internal: Who bankers can speak with inside the firm (industry specialists, research, syndicate desk) and the coordination required to clear marketing materials for principal approval
- Research Analyst Conduct: The information barrier between investment banking and research, prohibited communications, the 10-day IPO and 3-day secondary-offering quiet periods, and the required disclosures in research reports
Why This Matters
Function 1 is the largest scoring area on the Series 79 (49% / 37 of 75 scored questions). This opening unit anchors three exam-favorite testing themes:
- Which SEC filing surfaces which kind of data
- How the current beneficial-ownership rules shortened the 13D and 13G clocks
- Where the information barrier between banking and research draws the line
Get these straight before you touch valuation math. The exam writes scenario questions that pair a filing with a banker action: a Form 4 lands, the banker calls research, the research analyst joins a road show. Each fact has a rule attached to it.
Let's start at the top of the workflow: the data sources bankers pull from before any analysis happens.