FINC411

The course will introduce students to the principles and practices of financial and economic forecasting. While qualitative approaches will be discussed, most of the course will emphasize quantitative models that involve the application of statistical and mathematical methods and techniques to a variety of forecasting problems. The initial part of the course will focus on methodological considerations including the forecast environment, process and objectives; data considerations; and forecast evaluation and model selection criteria. We will then introduce "univariate" or single-variable time series models including "naïve," moving average, and exponential smoothing models.