Lab $8-6$ Excel: Forecasting Future Performance $($Sales and Earnings for IBM and Netflix$)$

Page $520$

Keywords

predictive analytics, forecasting, time series

Lab Insight

There are many reasons to forecast future performance for a firm. It may be predicting sales to determine needed manufacturing capacity. It may be predicting cash flows to determine if the company will need a loan or have sufficient cash onhand without getting a loan. An investor might be forecasting earnings to determine whether the company will be a good investment. The goal of this lab is to forecast sales and earnings for IBM and Netflix using Excel's Forecast Sheet. $($Note: Excel's Forecast Sheet is not available on Excel for Mac computers.$)$

Requlred:

Using Excel's Forecast Sheet, forecast future sales for IBM.

Using Excel's Forecast Sheet, forecast future income before extraordinary items for IBM.

Ask the Question

What will IBM's quarterly sales and earnings for $2022,2023,$ and $2024$ be given time series $($past quarterly sales and earnings from $2010$ to $2021)?$

Master the Data

Looking at IBM's financial statements, we accumulate the values of quarterly sales and earnings from $2010$ to $2021.$

Open Excel File Lab $8-6$ Data.xlsx$.$