Creating a Time Series Data: Naive Method

Objective

To determine the value for the forecast for a selected week. 

Forcast week 7

##Part A: Insert Data

week <- 1:6
values <- c(17, 13, 15, 11, 17, 14)

##Part B: Most recent value as forecast

forecasts_a <- values[-length(values)] #exclude the last value
actual_a <- values[-1] #exclude the first value 
mse_a <- mean((actual_a - forecasts_a)^2)
mse_a # results: 16.2
## [1] 16.2
forecast_week_7_a <- tail(values, 1)
forecast_week_7_a #results: 14
## [1] 14
Interpretation: The mean square of value a is 16.2. 

##Part C: Average all of the data as forecast

cumulative_avg <- cumsum(values[-length(values)]) / (1:(length(values) - 1))
cumulative_avg
## [1] 17.0 15.0 15.0 14.0 14.6
forecasts_b <- cumulative_avg
actual_b <- values[-1] #exclude the first value 
mse_b <- mean((actual_b - forecasts_b)^2)
mse_b
## [1] 8.272
forecast_week_7_b <- tail(values) #average of all weeks as forecast for week 7
forecast_week_7_b
## [1] 17 13 15 11 17 14
Interpretation: The mean square of value b is 8.27

Part D: Which method is better

better_method <- ifelse(mse_a < mse_b, "Most Recent Value", "Average of All Data")
list(
  MSE_most_recent_value = mse_a,
  forecast_week_7_most_recent = forecast_week_7_a,
  MSE_average_of_all_data = mse_b,
  forecast_week_7_average = forecast_week_7_b,
  Better_Method = better_method
) 
## $MSE_most_recent_value
## [1] 16.2
## 
## $forecast_week_7_most_recent
## [1] 14
## 
## $MSE_average_of_all_data
## [1] 8.272
## 
## $forecast_week_7_average
## [1] 17 13 15 11 17 14
## 
## $Better_Method
## [1] "Average of All Data"
Interpretation: Better method is Average of All Data.

###Example 2: Alabama Contracts

##Part A: Install and load libraries

#install.packages("dplyr")
#install.packages("zoo")

library(dplyr)
## 
## Attaching package: 'dplyr'
## The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
## 
##     filter, lag
## The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
## 
##     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union
library(zoo)
## 
## Attaching package: 'zoo'
## The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
## 
##     as.Date, as.Date.numeric

##Part B: Time Series Plot

df <- data.frame(month=c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12),
                 data=c(240, 352, 230, 260, 280, 322, 220, 310, 240, 310, 240, 230))

plot(df$month, df$data, type = "o",col = "blue", xlab = "Month", ylab = "Building Contracts",
     main = "Monthly Percentages of All Alabama Contracts")

Interpretation: The time-series plot exhibits a horizontal pattern 

##Part C: Three-month moving average

df$avg_contracts <- c(NA, NA, NA,
                      (df$data[1] + df$data[2] + df$data[3]) / 3, 
                      (df$data[2] + df$data[3] + df$data[4]) / 3, 
                      (df$data[3] + df$data[4] + df$data[5]) / 3, 
                      (df$data[4] + df$data[5] + df$data[6]) / 3, 
                      (df$data[5] + df$data[6] + df$data[7]) / 3, 
                      (df$data[6] + df$data[7] + df$data[8]) / 3, 
                      (df$data[7] + df$data[8] + df$data[9]) / 3, 
                      (df$data[8] + df$data[9] + df$data[10]) / 3,
                      (df$data[9] + df$data[10] + df$data[11]) / 3)

##Part D: Calculate the squared errors (only for the months where moving average is available)

df <- df %>%
  mutate(
    squared_error = ifelse(is.na(avg_contracts), NA, (data - avg_contracts)^2)
  )

##Part E: Compute MSE (excluding the initial months with NA)

mse <- mean(df$squared_error, na.rm = TRUE) 
mse #results: 2040.44                    
## [1] 2040.444
# Exponential smoothing 
alpha = 0.2
exp_smooth <- rep(NA, length(df$data))
exp_smooth[1] <- df$data[1] #starting point 
for(i in 2:length(df$data)) {
  exp_smooth[i] <- alpha * df$data[i-1] + (1 - alpha) * exp_smooth[i-1]
}
mse_exp_smooth <- mean((df$data[2:12] - exp_smooth[2:12])^2)
mse_exp_smooth #results: 2593.76
## [1] 2593.762

##Part F: Better Method

better_method <- ifelse(mse < mse_exp_smooth, "Three-month moving average", "Exponential smoothing")
list(
  MSE_moving_average = mse, 
  MSE_exponential_smoothing = mse_exp_smooth, 
  Better_Method = better_method
) 
## $MSE_moving_average
## [1] 2040.444
## 
## $MSE_exponential_smoothing
## [1] 2593.762
## 
## $Better_Method
## [1] "Three-month moving average"
Interpretation: Better method is Three-month moving average

###Example 3: Mortgage Interest Rate

##Part A: Install and load libraries

#install.packages(readxl)
#install.packages(ggplot2)

library(readxl)
library(ggplot2)

##Part B: Load the data

df1 <- read_excel("Mortgage.xlsx")

##Part C: Time Series plot

ggplot(df1, aes(x = Year, y = Interest_Rate)) +
  geom_line() +
  geom_point() +
  xlab("Year") +
  ylab("Interest Rate") +
  ggtitle("Time Series Plot of Mortgage Interest Rates")

Interpretation: From the plot you can observe a period of decrease in interest rates over 15 years with an increase the follow years

##Part D: Develop a linear trend equation

model <- lm(Interest_Rate ~ Period, data = df1)
summary(model)
## 
## Call:
## lm(formula = Interest_Rate ~ Period, data = df1)
## 
## Residuals:
##     Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
## -1.3622 -0.7212 -0.2823  0.5015  3.1847 
## 
## Coefficients:
##             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
## (Intercept)  6.69541    0.43776  15.295 3.32e-13 ***
## Period      -0.12890    0.03064  -4.207 0.000364 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
## Residual standard error: 1.039 on 22 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared:  0.4459, Adjusted R-squared:  0.4207 
## F-statistic:  17.7 on 1 and 22 DF,  p-value: 0.0003637
Interpretation: linear trend equation: Interest Rate = 6.6954 - 0.1289*Period OR y = 6.70 - 0.13t

##Part E: Forecast for period 25 (i.e., 2024)

forecast_period_25 <- predict(model, newdata = data.frame(Period = 25))
forecast_period_25 
##        1 
## 3.472942
Interpretation: The forecast for period 25, 2024 is a mortgage with a 3.47% interest rate.