2021 Exam Information & Learning Objective Statements: CMT Level Ii
2021 Exam Information & Learning Objective Statements: CMT Level Ii
The following sample CMT Level II questions offer a glimpse into the style and scope of the
exam. Each of the sample questions is followed by a relevant excerpt and citation from
the 2021 CMT Level II curriculum. These 16 samples are by no means a study guide;
instead, consider them a taste of what a Level II candidate will learn to master this
segment of the body of knowledge.
• The CMT Level II exam tests on the theory and analysis of applied technical analysis.
• The actual exam consists of 170 multiple-choice questions of which 150 are scored
items. The remaining 20 questions are under trial for future use.
• Candidates have four hours to complete the 170 questions on the exam.
3 Moving Averages
Contrast various types of moving averages used in trend analysis
Illustrate four ways moving averages are used by technicians
Analyze trend movement using Directional Movement Indicators
Compare common envelope, channel, and band indicators
13 Multi-Candle Patterns
Diagram and interpret notable patterns formed by multiple candles: engulfing, stars, windows and others in
this chapter
Demonstrate the importance of the prevailing trend when interpreting candle patterns
Differentiate between the buying and selling activity represented by real bodies and shadows in these
candle patterns
Interpret candle patterns for support and resistance
21 Perception Biases
Describe each of the four perception biases covered in this chapter
Illustrate how each of these biases might affect investor behavior
22 Inertial Effects
Describe each of the three inertial effects covered in this chapter
Illustrate how each of these might affect investor behavior
26 Correlation
Compare Pearson’s and Spearman’s methods
Describe the importance of linearity and normality to useful correlation studies
Analyze the effect of outliers on a regression study
27 Regression
Interpret values generated by regression, multiple regression and tolerance calculations
Demonstrate the process of selecting meaningful predictor variables for multiple regression studies
28 Regression Analysis
Analyze the concept behind the ARIMA method
Describe the ARIMA process
Employ the results of the ARIMA forecast to generate trading signals
Demonstrate use of linear regression to generate trading signals
Illustrate the use of linear regression for relative strength studies
30 Intermarket Analysis
Interpret the rotation of stocks, bonds, and commodities in the typical business cycle
Describe methods of determining intermarket relationships
Illustrate the importance of measuring correlation for portfolio diversification and asset selection
1. The bias under which an event which has not occurred recently is perceived as having
zero or negligible probability of occurring in the future is categorized as
A. saliency bias.
B. framing bias.
C. sunk-cost bias.
D. anchoring bias.
“When we have not encountered something recently, we have a tendency to ignore that
thing even if it is important to an upcoming decision. No one seems interested in buying
flood insurance unless there has been a recent flood. Airplane accident insurance is
almost never purchased except in airports just prior to boarding a flight, though it is
available to be purchased from the moment travel plans are made. When the economy
has been strong and vigorous for a long time, fears of an economic slowdown recede
almost to the point of being completely ignored.”
-- Burton and Shah
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 21
Learning Objective: Describe each of the four perception
biases covered in this chapter
A. saliency bias.
A. MACD line
B. RSI
C. relative strength line
D. advance/decline ratio
“Market breadth measures the imbalance between the number of advancing and declining
stocks on a given day. It is the percentage of rising stocks to the total number of stocks
traded.”
-- Kaufman
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 9
Learning Objective: Analyze changes in breadth in the context of price trends
“Market breadth refers to the spread or difference between the number of stocks
advancing and the number declining on a given day, week, or other defined time interval.
Breadth has been measured in a variety of ways … For [these] purposes … breadth is
defined as the daily advance-decline ratio; that is, it is the difference between a day’s
advancing and declining issues divided by the total number of issues traded.”
-- Aronson
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 38
D. advance/decline ratio
“The ADX is the smoothed value of the DX …. When the ADX is rising, the market is
increasingly trending in either direction.
The ADX indicator is valuable in determining when to apply a moving average trend-
following system. A rising ADX indicates an increasing tendency to trend in the
corresponding prices.”
-- Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 3
C. a trending market.
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
“Fourth, some technical analysts use moving averages to give specific signals. These
can occur when prices cross a moving average, when a shorter moving average
crosses a longer moving average, and in some cases, when a third, even shorter,
moving average crosses two longer ones.”
-- Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 3
Learning Objective: Illustrate four ways moving averages
are used by technicians
C. C
5. Which of the following patterns describe the price action highlighted within the green
rectangles marked ‘A’ & ‘B’?
“The bullish piercing pattern consists of a black body forming in the downtrend; the
next real body culminates in a white real body that closes within the prior black body,
preferably more than one-half of the black body’s length. The white real body
“pierces” the recent downtrend, with the bulls overwhelming the bears. Subsequent
price action should confirm this pattern …”
-- Nison
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 13
“The star is the middle portion of two candle patterns called the morning star and
evening star … The morning star’s bearish counterpart is the evening star. Three candle
lines make up this top reversal signal. In the context of an uptrend, a long white candle
appears, convincing the bulls that the rally will continue. Then the star appears in the
form of a small real body that classically gaps up from the white candle’s closing price.
The star’s real body (black or white) remains isolated as the next candle confirms the
trend top by gapping away from the star and producing a long, black real body that
pushes into the white candle’s real body. The final candle seals the fate of the bulls as
the bears grab control and push the market downward.”
-- Nison
6. Identify the candlestick pattern highlighted by the circle in the chart below.
A. harami
B. bullish engulfing
C. hammer
D. marubozu
“…like a piercing pattern, the bullish engulfing pattern typically appears at the
culmination of a decline or a downtrend … The market falls, and a black candle forms.
Next, a candle line develops with a real body that wraps around the prior session’s
black body. … As the white real body opens under the prior black real body’s close and
closes above that session’s open, it shows that buying pressure has overpowered selling
pressure (i.e., the bulls have taken charge!) If the market is solid, the lows of the bullish
engulfing pattern should be support.”
-- Nison
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 13
Learning Objective: Diagram and interpret notable patterns formed by
multiple candles: engulfing, stars, windows and others in this chapter
B. bullish engulfing
A. Head and shoulders top; go long and use current pullback as shares are retesting
an important support level at point B.
B. Double top; go short at point A as shares have violated an uptrend support line.
C. Triple top; wait for a close below point C and execute shorts when prices are 2%
below the neckline.
D. Head and shoulders top; wait for a close below point B to execute shorts below the
neckline.
“Once a pattern has been observed using the preceding descriptive features, the
neckline becomes the most important factor. The neckline is where the breakout level
resides. Never should one act in anticipation of a break through the neckline.”
-- Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 10
Learning Objective: Draw rounding chart patterns such
as head-and-shoulders
D. Head and shoulders top; wait for a close below point B to execute shorts below
the neckline.
8. Phase refers to
A. the height of the wave from its horizontal midpoint (the X-axis).
B. the number of time units necessary to complete one wavelength.
C. the number of wavelengths that repeat every 360°.
D. a measurement of the starting point or offset of the cycle relative to a benchmark
or theoretical wave.
“After identifying the cycle(s) operating within a market and verifying the dominant
cycle, an analyst can begin to “phase” the chart. This is the process of matching
actual price lows to theoretical cycle troughs.”
-- Crystal
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 15
-- Crystal
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021
Learning Objective: Differentiate tools that find cycles
from tools that phase cycles
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
“Subjective divergence analysis typically involves comparing the peaks and troughs of
the two time series under consideration. A negative or bearish divergence is said to
occur if one series continues to register peaks at successively higher levels while the
other series begins forming peaks at lower levels. The failure by the second series to
form peaks at successively higher levels is also termed a bearish nonconfirmation.”
-- Aronson
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 38
D. D
10. Because relative strength is so________ it is used as the primary ________ Random
Walk and EMH.
A. successful, defense of
B. successful, argument against
C. weak, defense of
D. weak, argument against
“Not until 1993 was another major paper published on the subject of relative price
strength, or momentum as it is commonly called. This paper, “Returns to Buying Winners
and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency,” was also published in the
Journal of Finance. The authors, Professors Narishimhan Jegadeesh and Sheridan
Titman, … stated that the t-test statistical evidence forced them “to conclude that the
hypothesis of market efficiency can be rejected at even the most conservative levels of
significance.”
…by the time of Conrad and Kaul’s paper, other doubts about market efficiency had
also been demonstrated, and the evidence was not rejected immediately as it had
been … Since then, the basis of their paper has been proven correct not only in foreign
countries but also in the period following the original paper in the United States, …
In 1998, Professor K. G. Rouwenhorst showed that momentum was successful in 12
European stock markets, and in 1999, he demonstrated that momentum was most
strong in emerging markets. Other studies confirm the existence of profitability from
relative strength in China, Germany, eight different Asian markets (without Japan), and
Switzerland. Even Professor Eugene Fama, one of the originators of the EMH, found
that momentum was the only anomaly to survive a multitude of tests (Fama and French,
1996). Academia has, thus, concluded that the theory of relative price strength shows
success not only in producing profits but also in debunking part of the EMH.”
“… a large portion of the data, called out-of-sample data, must be kept aside to use
later when testing the system for robustness. Once a viable system has been
adequately optimized, the resulting parameters are then tested against the out-of-
sample data to see if the system works with unknown data and was not the result of
curve-fitting or data mining.”
-- Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 39
Learning Objective: Differentiate methods of optimization
12. The measurement that tells the system designer how far a trade was in loss before it
came back to close in profit is called
“Maximum favorable and adverse excursions … inform the system’s designer of how
much dispersion exists in trades. It can be used to measure the smoothness of the
equity curve but also give hints as to where and how often losing trades occur. Its
primary use is to give hints as to where trailing stops should be placed to take
advantage of favorable excursions and reduce adverse excursions.
-- Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 39
Learning Objective: Compare various metrics for evaluating trading systems
such as profit factor, percent profitable, and average trade net profit
B. maximum adverse excursion.
A. An initial stop
B. A trailing stop
C. A sell stop
D. A standard deviation stop
“Follow a profitable move with a trailing, nonretreating stop based on fixed points or a
percentage.”
-- Kaufman
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 7
“… devise a stop-loss strategy … This strategy should include protective and trailing
stops, price targets, and adjustments for volatility, type of market, and any other state
that the market might be in.”
“On the exit side of a trend, specific trailing stops or such can be used to receive
better prices…”
-- Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 39
B. A trailing stop
14. The only effective method of diversifying a portfolio is by including asset classes with
________ correlation to stocks such as cash, foreign exchange or commodities.
A. positive
B. meaningful
C. low/negative
D. moderately positive
“The only effective method of diversifying one’s portfolio is by including asset classes
with low or negative correlation to stocks such as cash, foreign exchange, or
commodities. Whatever the relationship is—leading, lagging, or divergent responses to
economic conditions—a strong negative correlation coefficient between two markets is
a suggestion that these markets will move against each other sometime in the future.
And, of course, the higher the absolute value of the coefficient of correlation, the
higher the diversity of their performances.”
-- Katsanos
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 30
Learning Objective: Illustrate the importance of measuring correlation
for portfolio diversification and asset selection
C. low/negative
A. Put/Call parity
B. Plurality index
C. Implied volatility
D. Standard deviation
“What the implied volatility of an option projects onto the underlying security is the
expected range of price movement over a certain period of time. This estimation of
price movement is based on statistics and the bell curve. The implied volatility of an
option is the projection of an annualized one standard deviation move in the underlying
stock over the life of the option. According to statistics and using implied volatility as a
guide, the price of a stock should land between up and down one standard deviation
C. Implied volatility
16. What would be the implied volatility if you were told the one day expected movement
was 2%?
A. 0.317%
B. 31.7%
C. 6.93%
D. 5.04%
”
-- Rhoads
CMT Level II Curriculum (2021), Chapter 18
Learning Objective: Calculate single-day implied volatility
B. 31.7%