Homework: Analytic Techniques
Length: 3 to 5 pages.
Competency
By successfully completing this homework, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies through corresponding guide criteria:
1. Competency 1: Use analytic and statistical techniques to make meaning of large quantities of data.
• Create four different graphical representations of data.
• Calculate descriptive statistics for two different variables.
• Summarize the processes by which each graph and statistics were created and calculated.
2. Competency 2: Present the results of data analysis in clear and meaningful ways to multiple stakeholders.
• Introduce the company and practical business context.
Download data on a company's stock history. From this data, create scatterplots, histograms, and calculate the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of some data points. Write a 3 to 5 pages report including the graphs and descriptive statistics you have created.
Business analytics techniques are used to facilitate decision making by transforming large amounts of raw data into meaningful information. Many businesses rely on analysis of relevant historical data to make key strategic and operational decisions. Therefore, understanding how to use techniques such as graphical representation and descriptive statistics to translate raw data into useful information can be a valuable skill in an organization.
In this homework and the next, you will have the opportunity to sharpen your analytics skills by locating and interpreting real-life stock data.
You have been learning about how to explore data. In this homework, you will apply those skills by downloading a practical dataset and creating graphical representations of that data. The work you do in this homework will lay the foundation for future homeworks in which you analyze and interpret those graphical representations. Since the purpose of business analytics is to make sense of large quantities of raw data, this homework helps you develop skills in applying analytics to business contexts by practicing the exploration and display of data.
In addition to graphical and tabular summary methods, numeric or quantitative variables and data can be summarized numerically using various techniques of description and display.
Descriptive methods, which describe existing data, are also methods for using a subset of the available data to estimate or test a theory about a measurement on a larger group. This larger group is called the population, and the measurement being studied is the parameter. The smaller group, or subset, of the population that is taken in order to make an inference (to make an estimate or test a theory) is referred to as the sample. The measurement taken on that sample is then referred to as the statistic, which is usually the best single-number estimate for the population parameter of interest. Most often, however, the estimate should not be restricted to a single number that would be exactly correct or incorrect. Instead, it is preferable to calculate some range of possible values between which there can be a certain percent confidence that the true population parameter falls. These are referred to as confidence intervals.
You are an analyst in a publicly traded company. Your supervisor has asked you to create graphical representations from raw stock data for a company-wide meeting at the end of the quarter.
Your Role
Your task is to analyze the stock history of the company and create a scatterplot and a histogram. Then you will calculate mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the adjusted daily closing stock price and the stock volume.
It is your responsibility to turn that data into meaningful information using descriptive statistics.
Instructions
1. Select a business of which you are a part or in which you have interest and download the raw data on the company's stock history. Any business that has practical meaning for you is appropriate for this homework.
2. Follow these steps to locate and download stock history from Yahoo! Finance:
• Go to Yahoo Finance.
• Search for and find the stock of the company you have chosen.
• Click on the "Historical Data" tab. Then select the following settings above the table:
o Select Time Period of one year.
o Select "Historical Prices."
o Select Frequency as "Daily."
• Click Apply.
• Click on "Download Data." Go to the bottom of your screen or your Downloads folder to open the Excel file you just downloaded. Open the Excel file. Check to be sure that you have enough lines to show the whole year. If not, reset the settings at the top of the Historical Data chart and try again.
• Once you are sure that you have a year's worth of data, save the Excel file.
3. Using the Excel file with the year's stock data, conduct descriptive analysis as follows:
• Create a scatterplot of the highest stock price (in the column labeled "High") against time. Write a sentence explaining the process by which you created this graph.
• Create a scatterplot of the lowest stock price (in the column labeled "Low") against time. Write a sentence explaining the process by which you created this graph.
• Create a histogram of the adjusted daily closing stock price (in the column labeled "Adj Close"). Make sure the histogram is meaningful by adjusting the bin size so you can see the shape of the histogram. Write a sentence explaining the process by which you created this graph.
• Create a histogram of the stock trading volume (in the column labeled "Volume"). Make sure the histogram is meaningful by adjusting the bin size so you can see the shape of the histogram. Write a sentence explaining the process by which you created this graph.
• Calculate the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the adjusted daily closing stock price. Write a sentence explaining the process by which you calculated these statistics.
• Calculate the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the stock volume. Write a sentence explaining the process by which you calculated these statistics.
Format your homework according to the give formatting requirements:
• The answer must be using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced, typed, with one-inch margins on all sides.
• The response also includes a cover page containing the student's name, the title of the homework, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
• Also include a reference page. The references and Citations should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.