Goals of time series analysis
There are two goals in time-series analysis:
- Identifying any patterns in the time series
- Forecasting future values of the time series
We can use time-series analysis methods to uncover the nature of a time series. At the most basic level, we may want to know if a series appears to be random or if a time series appears to exhibit a pattern. If a time series has a pattern, we can determine if it has seasonal behavior, cyclical patterns, or exhibits trending behavior. We will investigate the behaviors of time series both by observation and by the results of fitting models. Models can provide insight into the nature of a series and allow us to forecast the future values of a time series.
The other goal of time-series analysis is forecasting. We see examples of forecasting in many common situations, such as weather forecasting and stock price forecasting. It is important to keep in mind that the methods of forecasting we cover in this...
