Autoregressive models are used by analysts and statisticians (so you know it must be fun) to try to predict future securities prices based on a history of previous prices. While this may not always be a dependable way to forecast ("past performance is no guarantee of future results" after all), they can also take into account trends, cycles and moving averages.
It's not an in-depth way to review a company (it's like trying to judge the quality of a baseball team by yesterday's score), so you may not want to rely on an autoregressive model to choose a stock. But in addition to analyzing a company’s financials, you could use the model to decide at what price you will buy and sell. An example of an autoregressive chart can be found here.
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Finance: What is Regression Analysis?7 Views
Finance allah shmoop what is regression analysis Regression and elses
no it's not a therapy session in which your psychiatrist
tries to figure out why you've gone back to using
passive fires It's simply this the process by which a
siri's have different independent variables are compay haired to a
dependent variable to see which might have the greatest effect
on the value of the dependent variable All right Well
okay That's The theory of it anyway But what about
some practical examples Well what are these graphs And what
do they tell us Well let's take pete the pizza
joint guy How does he know what's bringing in customers
Is it his new burrito pizza or the virtual skee
ball machines he put in the back Well we can
use some math here to find an equation Usually a
linear one Linear regression Very fine Mathematic sport That best
matches the pattern in the data Then we can see
how close the points are to that line and that
you know will solve our burrito pizza Steve all conundrum
and help pete manage his business better Well the closer
that data points are to the line the more likely
there's some kind of link between the independent and dependent
variables well it doesn't mean one variable causes another It
just means they're linked somehow Like what about the link
between ice cream sales and drownings Death that's a morbid
connection but see how cloaks the data points are to
that special line So yeah there's absolutely some meaningful link
between ice cream sales and drownings deaths greater ice cream
sales on a given day is always linked to mohr
drowning deaths on that day Why what's the linking factor
Flavor of ice cream of the amount of sugar in
the ice cream Too much in ice cream fat and
crap and stuff accessibility to public swimming pools Well clearly
ice cream isn't some insidious killer drowning people who get
in the water without waiting the records that you know
one hour But there is a link between those two
variables Think about it As it turns out hire isis
scream sales happen on hotter days so heat or sunshine
is the linking factor Mohr people go swimming on hotter
days when more people swim while they're going to be
more drowning possibilities anyway so i scream sales in drowning
Deaths are linked but ice cream sales don't cause drowning
death Got it No causal link there Similarly check out
how the points in this graph are not really close
to the line at all There's no link between your
shoe size and your g p a you know unless
you buy huge shoes build a mini computer that fits
in the extra space in your shoes and use that
to help you you know cheat Don't do that by
the way Always cite shmoop anyway back to pete the
owner of zaza pizza Pete almost has more customers lately
than he can handle while the lightning is striking Pete
wants to find a way Teo you know bottle it
The thing is he's made to significant changes to his
restaurant and he's not sure which one is more responsible
for the influx of people tossing money of him Is
it the virtual skee ball machines Or is it his
new burrito pizza Is there in fact any link at
all Well it could be both that are responsible but
that's beyond pete skill and this course to determine he
can only compare one at a time to the increased
Revenue so pete picks different days and plots the number
of burrito pizza orders against the total money made that
day Notice how the data points seem closely to follow
an imaginary line there fromthe lower left to the upper
right In general we can see that low burrito pizza
order numbers are paired with lower daily revenues Also hi
burrito pizza orders are paired with higher daily revenues high
against high low against low will the closer the points
are too that imaginary line the more likely it is
that the independent variable in this case burrito pizza sales
is at least related in some meaningful way to the
dependent variable like it's the pendant on sales of total
daily revenue under our tea i eighty for their or
phone or computer or whatever you're using first week pop
up our data into the list by pressing the stat
button Then enter we put in the ex data in
list one there l won and the y data enlist
to l two Now we press the second key and
the mod key to get out of that menu If
we don't get out of that menu well we're just
begging to screw the pooch here so get out Get
out now we bash stat move over to the cal
commend you and choose option for which is lean wreg
a x plus be all right That's in texas shorthand
for linear regression Yeah on the menu it brings up
moved down to calculator and then press enter if you're
cal doesn't show the r squared and our values Well
you need to hit youtube in search for how to
turn on stat diagnostics t i eighty four there's a
bunch of important info in the results that we need
to check out most importantly for pete's sake is the
value of our the closer that our value is toe
one or negative one The closer the points are two
best fit that possible line Well the closer they are
value is toe one for graphs with positive slopes or
negative one for graphs with negative slope the stronger the
link between the independent independent variables there right That link
is called a correlation right They correlate it doesn't mean
higher daily revenues are absolutely caused by burrito pizza lovers
but it does suggest there somehow correlated and that correlation
is strong anyway The a and b values that you
see on the display happen to be the slope And
why intercept of the equation in the best possible line
pete can use these to predict daily revenues if he
knows the number of burrito pizza sails in a day
But that's a different video Pete still needs to know
if virtual skee ball is so exciting that it might
be more responsible for daily revenue jumps He also plotted
the number of times virtual skee ball was played in
a day versus those same daily revenue figures Well guess
what The points look like a cloud instead of having
any obvious linear pattern Well if we pop that data
into the cal can run the same linear regression process
again we get a very different our value We can
also just see that the points aren't that close to
the line that our value is not close toe one
at all In fact it's cozying up to zero like
it's Ah you know frat boy and zero is well
every girl within a forty meter radius when they are
value is sniffing around zero like that Well it means
there's some kind of very weak correlation between the independent
and deep and it variables We can't stress enough that
this is in proof of any kind of cause no
matter how weak between the two variables just that some
kind of correlation exists and that it's weak pete has
some evidence that the increase daily revenue is almost all
about the burrito pizza and only a tiny bit due
to the virtual skee ball crowd But this is a
big but pete does not have proof they are Value
just suggests that there's some kind of link between the
two variables Not that a change in one variable causes
a change in the other Still with that significant of
a difference in our values pete is pretty safe in
thinking burrito pizza is probably more important in driving higher
revenues than virtual skee ball Pete used a regression analysis
on the two different variables he thought might influence his
bank account the most any decisions he makes killing forward
should probably be menu focused as opposed to you know
attraction focused and still he can't forget the virtual skee
ball entirely It is probably a teeny bit responsible for
the increased mullah in pete's case the correlation between the
variables was positive which means that as burrito pizza sales
or virtual skee ball plays increase well so does daily
revenue there also negative correlations here is well where as
one variable increases the other variable decreases Case in point
carla's customs right next to pete's place carla has customs
takes broken down golf carts and file suits them up
They recently made three distinct changes to their builds and
have noticed a huge decrease in the time it takes
one of their cards to complete the forty r dash
will car lot I wanted to figure out which change
might have been the most responsible for the decreased time's
Carlota plotted forty yard dash times versus the size of
the rims that these things right here they're diameter and
got an r value of negative point one seven nine
when she ran a linear regression of the data then
forty yard dash times versus the cylinder diameter there and
got in our value of negative point six to eight
when she ran a linear regression of that data then
the forty yard dash times versus the nitrous oxide concentration
Is what she ran and she got in our value
of negative point nine four eight when she ran a
linear regression of the data Well guess what The simple
fact here all three plots have some kind of linear
relationship It does mean that there's some kind of correlation
between each of these three variables rim size cylinder diameter
and nitrous oxide concentration you know in the forty yard
dash time of the golf carts with her mostly electric
But we won't get technicals here since all the grafts
have negative slopes and the correlation with nitrous oxide is
the close to the values to negative one The nitrous
oxide concentration has the strongest correlation to decrease forty yard
dash times like it's bad for speed reduced nitrous oxide
in your golf cart it's important to remember that carlotta
can't say that the nitrous oxide concentration is the direct
cause of the faster times All she knows is that
there's a link or a correlation between them Still with
further experimentation carlota could establish a causal relationship Carlotta explored
the relationship between three different variables and their possible effect
on the time to run the forty yard dash using
regression analysis She determined all three variables had some kind
of negative correlation of the times To run the course
as the nitrous concentration or the rim sides or the
cylinder diameter increased well the forty yard dash times decreased
Clearly the nitrous concentration had the strongest correlation Carla should
probably focus on that concentration for the greatest decrease in
times She knows she can't ignore the rim size nor
can she ignore the cylinder diameter as they all contribute
Toe overall Golf cart forty r dash speed times Right
regression analysis will never tell us which variable is the
actual cause It just kind of gives us it's along
the way it's best to make decisions informed by all
the variables that are correlated to the dependent variable And
as kelly clarkson famously saying you know this independent variable 00:10:13.231 --> [endTime] something like that miss independent variable
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