Series 6 cheat sheet
The whole Series 6 exam on one page: 13 lines, one per unit, each carrying the single highest-yield takeaway from that topic. Built for the night before and the morning of. Every unit name links to the matching free lesson in the CertFuel app, so anything that still feels shaky is one click from a full explanation.
This is the entire Series 6 boiled down to 13 lines, one per unit of the FINRA content outline. Each line is the takeaway that earns the most points in that topic, written to be read in a couple of minutes rather than studied.
Read it top to bottom the night before your exam and again the morning of. The job is not to learn anything new: it is to sweep the whole outline quickly and find out which topics still feel solid and which do not. When a line lands flat, that is the signal. Click the unit name to open the matching free lesson in the CertFuel app, close the gap, and come back.
Worth being blunt about the limits: a cheat sheet is a review tool, not a shortcut past the material. If most of these lines read like new information instead of reminders, you are not ready to test yet, and the honest fix is the full course rather than more skimming.
Seeking Business
24%- Communications with the Public: Classify by audience first (more than 25 retail investors is a retail communication, institutional-only is institutional, 25 or fewer is correspondence, unscripted talk is a public appearance), pre-approve and sometimes file the retail pieces, keep everything fair and balanced, and never let tax-deferred masquerade as tax-free. Nail the numbers and the classification and this unit answers itself.
- Soliciting Business and New Issues: Classify the phase first (pre-registration is silent, cooling-off allows only a red herring and indications of interest for at least 20 days, post-effective is when sales happen and the final prospectus is delivered). Match the exemption to the deal (Regulation D caps non-accredited investors at 35 traditionally or zero with general solicitation, intrastate demands 80% in-state and is all-or-nothing, municipals use a Preliminary Official Statement and Official Statement instead of a prospectus). Nail the deadlines and remember exempt from registration is never exempt from antifraud.
Opening Accounts
16%- Account Types and Registration: Series 6 sells packaged products for commissions and needs the Investment Adviser Representative registration to charge advisory fees. Title accounts by their death consequence: Joint Tenants with Right of Survivorship and Tenants by the Entirety skip probate, Tenants in Common does not. Lock the retirement limits, the age-73 Required Minimum Distribution, the 60-day rollover with mandatory 20% withholding, and the step-up that inherited retirement accounts never get.
- Customer Screening and Documentation: Verify identity once with the Customer Identification Program's four data points, then know your customer's essential facts and authority forever after. Regulation S-P locks down their private data, and every Power of Attorney, trust, corporate resolution, and discretionary grant just answers one question: who else may trade, and within what limits. Death freezes the account, and tipping off is a federal line you never cross.
- Customer Investment Profiles and Suitability: Ask two questions: was a recommendation made, and who is the customer. No recommendation means Know Your Customer only; a recommendation to a retail natural person means Regulation Best Interest (four obligations) plus Form CRS, while an institutional recommendation stays under the FINRA suitability rule with its three cumulative layers. Remember hold is a recommendation, sales contests get eliminated, and the municipal and tool rules stack on top.
- Supervisory Approvals for Accounts: A registered principal approves every new account, name or designation change, and discretionary order, and the representative routes business to that principal instead of self-approving. Checks go to the issuer and get forwarded by noon the next business day, senior holds follow the notice-first clock, and three complementary rules (supervision, supervisory-control, and MSRB municipal, with a Series 51 or 53 principal for 529 plans) stack together.
Investment Recommendations and Records
50%- Investment Products and Features: Open-end funds and unit investment trusts redeem at forward net asset value while closed-end funds and exchange-traded funds trade in the market, share classes just repackage the same sales charge under the 8.5% and 1.00% ceilings, and variable contracts split investment risk into the separate account and guarantees into the general account. Lock the pricing numbers, the redemption deadline, and the accumulation-versus-annuitization asymmetry, and this heaviest unit answers itself.
- Investment Strategies and Analysis: Run every recommendation through the four profile factors and let the more conservative one break ties. Diversification and beta both speak to market versus company risk, alpha measures skill above the Capital Asset Pricing Model expectation, and in rising prices First-In First-Out flatters earnings while Last-In First-Out saves taxes. Match volatility to time horizon, read the footnotes, and let tax treatment inform but never override suitability.
- Required Disclosures, Risks, and Fees: Disclose the material aspects, deliver the prospectus at or before confirmation and the Statement of Additional Information on request, and know the five core risks, the tax-form dividend boxes, and the fee caps cold. Gifts carry over basis while inheritance steps it up, and the senior-hold clock runs fifteen to twenty-five to fifty-five business days. Match risk to the profile and the numbers to the calendar and this unit answers itself.
- Customer Communications and Records: The confirmation lands at or before completion and must disclose capacity, statements arrive at least quarterly, and every record has a clock: 6 years for core and customer account records, 3 years for order tickets and communications, with customer account records held 6 years after closing. Accounts move between firms on the 1-day-validate, 3-day-complete Automated Customer Account Transfer Service timeline, and an objective change is a suitability trigger, not a stamp.
Processing Transactions
10%- Quotes and Best Execution: Each product quotes differently: open-end funds strike net asset value and public offering price once a day, while closed-end funds and exchange-traded funds trade continuously on an exchange. Forward pricing fills every fund order at the next net asset value after the firm receives it, so the rep never quotes a price up front. Best execution for funds is about share class, breakpoints, and prompt routing, and the rep must still recognize the two-part penny-stock compensation disclosure.
- Transaction Processing and Settlement: The settlement clock is trade date plus one business day, so Regulation T cash payment lands two business days after that, and selling before you pay freezes the account for 90 days without closing it. Tickets are made up front, principal-reviewed, and kept three years; buy limits and sell stops reduce on cash dividends while reverse splits cancel open orders outright. Nail the settlement numbers and the BLISS rule (Buy Limit, Sell Stop reduce) and this unit answers itself.
- Discrepancies, Complaints, and Arbitration: Fix the trade error at the fault line (firm-caused reprices to the originally-intended net asset value, customer-caused to the next net asset value), log every written complaint in the supervisory-office file for four years, and report the serious events to FINRA within 30 calendar days. Then remember the money ladder: $5,000 puts a complaint on the rep's Form U4, $15,000 reports a settlement against the rep, $25,000 against the firm, and the customer always holds the six-year arbitration key.
Can I bring a cheat sheet into the Series 6 exam?
No. The Series 6 is a closed-book exam delivered at a Prometric test center or through online proctoring, and no notes, formula sheets, or study material may come into the session with you. The center supplies a basic calculator and scratch material, and everything else goes in a locker. Use this sheet in the days before your appointment, not on exam day.
Is a cheat sheet enough to pass the Series 6?
No, and it is not meant to be. This page is a review tool for someone who has already worked through the material: each line is a memory jog that should pull a whole topic back into focus. If most of these lines read like new information rather than reminders, treat that as useful early warning and study those topics properly before you schedule the exam.
What should I review the night before the Series 6?
Read this sheet top to bottom once the night before and once the morning of your exam. It sweeps all four FINRA function areas in a few minutes, which is exactly what last-minute review should do: confirm what is solid and surface what is not. Give extra attention to the investment recommendations and records lines, since that function alone is half the exam.
Is this Series 6 cheat sheet free?
Yes. The whole page is free and needs no account. Every unit name links to the matching free lesson in the CertFuel app, so you can open any topic that still feels shaky and read the full explanation behind the line.
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A cheat sheet tells you where you stand. Practice questions tell you whether you can actually apply it under exam pressure, which is where the Series 6 does most of its damage.
Take the free full-length Series 6 practice exam for a scored read on where you are, work through the Series 6 practice questions by function, or run the numbers on the fund and annuity calculators if the sales-charge lines gave you trouble. New to the exam? Start at the Series 6 hub for format, cost, and topic weights.
In the CertFuel app, the same material comes with an adaptive question bank that resurfaces your weak topics, FSRS flashcards, and an Exam Readiness Score that tells you when the shaky lines have stopped being shaky.