The data contained in the DATAFILE named CRUDECOST shows the U.S. refiner acquisition cost of crude oil in dollars per barrel (energy information administration website, February 3, 2014).
a. construct a time series plot. What type of pattern exists in the data?
b. compute the linear trend equation for the time series. Use the linear trend equation to forecast the crude cost for January 2014.
c. compute the quadratic trend equation for the time series. Use the quadratic trend equation to forecast the crude cost for January 2014.
d. Using MSE, which approach provides the most Accuratre forecasts for the historical data?