FT Guide to Business Numeracy: How to Check the Figures for Yourself (The FT Guides)

Cover
The Financial Times Guide to Business Numeracy
Contents
Preface
Dealing with large amounts of information: how to summarise and describe it
	Why do data matter?
	Summarising large quantities of data
	Summarising data 1: averages – a refresher
	Spotting errors and deliberate mistakes with averages
	Summarising data 2: dispersion
	Summarising data 3: distribution
	Many scores are really a range: IQ tests
	Avoid jumping to conclusions: Simpson’s paradox
	Correlation
	Summary
Analysing large amounts of information: market surveys, polls and social behaviour
	Analysing data
	Sampling
	Terminology: population
	Census or sample?
	Induction and deduction
	Making sure the sample is representative
	Statistical inference
	Estimation
	Sampling error, standard error and the central limit theorem
	Confidence
	Significance levels
	Finding the sample size for a confidence level
	Spotting poor conclusions in survey results
	Bias in samples
	Stratified samples and cluster samples
	Choosing the right statistical test
	Parametric and non-parametric tests
	Degrees of freedom
	Type 1 and Type 2 errors
	The t-test
	F-test
	The chi-squared test
	Other non-parametric tests
	Hypothesis testing
	The binomial theorem
	Conclusion
Charts: presenting the data
	What’s the best way to present data for demonstration?
	Using tables to demonstrate data
	Using charts
	Which chart to use?
	Summary: general rules for drawing charts
Forecasting: time series analysis and regression analysis
	What is a forecast?
	Extrapolation
	Judgement, guesses and indicators
	Time series
	The multiplicative time series model
	Summary of quantitative approaches to forecasting
	Regression analysis
	A new development: Reference Class Forecasting
	Summary
Key decision-making tools
	Game theory
	Markov chains
	Controlling a project with network analysis
	Queueing
Finance and investment
	Points to watch out for in financial data
	Interest
	Inflation
	Comparing investments part 1: payback
	Comparing investments part 2: discounted cash flow
	Finding the future value of a stream of payments
	Indexing
	More on interest rates
The stock markets: some theories and techniques
	What does winning in the stock market mean?
	Deceit in prediction
	Approaches to stock market investment
	Is there any evidence that technical analysis can be used to predict share price movements?
	Fundamental analysis
	The comparative approach: the Price/Earnings ratio (PE)
	Does fundamental analysis work?
	Risk
	Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT)
	The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
	Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT)
	GARCH theory
	Chaos theory
	Neural networks
	The Efficient Market theory
	Conclusion
Probability
	Defining probability
	Measuring probability
	Ways of counting
	Conditional probability
	Dependent events
	Independent events
	Mutually exclusive events
	Non-exclusive events
	Probability trees
	Estimating probability
	Conclusion
Appendix: Basic concepts and notation
	Mathematical notation: a refresher
	Circles
	Factorials
	Equalities, inequalities, greater than and less than
	Intervals
	Brackets
	Percentages
	Calculating VAT
	Powers and roots
	Using a calculator
	Σ (sigma)
	Large numbers
	Rounding off
	Significant figures
	Logarithms (logs)
	Equations
	Graphs
Answers to self-tests
Glossary
Index