time series analysis - ???

System

Hi, could someone tell me what a time series analysis can be used for?

System

time series analysis - ???

It is a forecasting technique which assumes that historic trends and seasonal variations will continue into the future.<BR>Eg if you are looking at the sales volume of a product, you may wish to produce a prediction of how many will be sold next month if you don't change the advertising etc<BR>You would go back over past months, produce a trend (sales without seasonal variations) then extrapolate (basically project the trend into the future) so you have a trend value for next month, and finally apply the seasonal variation that you reckon applies to that particular month and this will give you the forecast<BR><BR><BR>sandy.hood@chichester.ac.uk