Sales during the past six months have been as follows:
a. Using a simple three-month moving average, make forecasts for April through July. What is the main weakness of using a simple moving average with data that are patterned like this?
b. Using simple exponential smoothing with a= 0.70, if the forecast for January had been 110, compute the exponentially smoothed forecasts for each month through July. Compare the forecasts for April through July with those obtained in part (a). Is this method more accurate for these data? Why or why not?