Business Statistics Consumer Confidence

Question: Discuss about theBusiness Statisticsfor Consumer Confidence. Answer: Introduction The article selected aims to put forward the requisite retail trade related data for the first month of 2017 i..e January. Retail trade is significant as it acts as an indicator of the underlying consumer confidence and also the economic health. Additionally, the major factors that have had a major influence on the retail trade growth during the given period have also been highlighted using statistics as an enabling tool. Further, through the breakup of the various components and their respective variation, an enhanced understanding of the changes can be developed. The essay herein focuses on discussing the article from the perspective of statistics usage in terms of various techniques, data types and data presentation techniques to summarize the given data. Suggestions to bring improvement in the given article are also offered from the user perspective. Analysis The data source for the data represented in the article seems to the CBA or Commonwealth Bank of Australia as no other source has been acknowledged. Further, the data type represented in the article selected is of ratio type as all the data used exists in the form of numerical values with a clear zero being defined. Also, the key data in relation to retail trade is expressed using various graphical aids wherever possible which is supplemented by a narrative description of the key data so that to enhance the useful data available in limited space (Flick, 2015). In order to summarize the data where time series is required, a graphical approach has been preferred rightly so because it is compact and tends to represent information in a user friendly manner which allows for better understanding of the trends with regards to the individual states and also the various broad components of the retail trade. This further facilitates drawing of meaningful conclusions which would be difficult if the same is not captured in a graphical or tabular format (Eriksson Kovalainen, 2015). There is use of descriptive statistics in the article as the various description is essentially based on figures that have already been observed and based on this available data, analysis is being conducted using various statistical techniques in order to obtain the visible trends. There is no usage of inferential statistics as there is no demonstration of the actual data being used to derive any conclusions about probably a population from which the given sample may be derived. The focus of the article is to be informative and apprise the reader with the ongoing trend and simultaneously account for the influential factors responsible for the same. Based on this comments have been offered with regards to the underlying strength of association between the retail trade and relevant factors identified Thus, using descriptive statistics the retail trade data for January 2017 has been captured and in order to put this number into perspective additional data has been provided in this regar ds with reference to historical numbers to facilitate comparison and drawing reasonable conclusion (Hair et. al., 2015). There has been extensive use of variation deployed in the given article which is immensely useful for putting the data collected into perspective. This includes comparison with the corresponding retail data which was obtained in the same month i.e. January of the previous years. Infact the percentage change in retail trade is derived by computing the variation in January data with regards to the corresponding December 2026 data in the various categories. Also, by understanding the variation in the retail trade and other key variables such as consumer confidence, tourism earnings and household savings an attempt has been made in order to explore the underlying relationships. Also, measure of central tendency in terms of average has been used in the content of quoting the average growth rate over 10 years (Fehr Grossman, 2003). The article does not focus on deriving conclusive results between retail trade and the other independent variables which could have potentially demanded the us e of inferential statistics to comment on the underlying significance. However, the focus of the article is only on offering potential explanation for the current month (Hastie, Tibshirani Friedman, 2011). An improvement in terms of presentation of information could be to add some lines on the expected future trend in retail trend particularly highlighting the key variables that could be significant. Also, since the estimates are to be made over the short term only, it is quite plausible to do so with accuracy which would increase the relevance and utility for the users. Also, it would have been better if in the graph capturing goods and services, the corresponding trends in key goods could have been represented which would have enhanced the overall information available (Flick, 2015). Summary The focus of the selected article is to present the January 2017 retail data growth, however since in isolation this number would have limited utility, hence the various relevant trends have been represented so that the users can derive meaningful conclusions. In this regard, the focus is on usage of ratio data types considering the numerical values and the clear notion of zero. Further, graphical aids have been used to represent data on a time series so as to hint the various trends in not retail inflation but the trends in various states as well. The use of descriptive statistics techniques has been quite wide as all the population data is readily available and no inferences need to be drawn. The various causal relations are directed in order to explain the key factors and their impact on the retail trade which partially provides hint for the future also considering the expected changes in the same factors. Also, in relation to the data presentation, the trends of various prominent components in goods could have been added so as to communicate to the user the pivotal contributors. References Eriksson, P. Kovalainen, A. (2015).Quantitative methods in business research (3rded.). London: Sage Publications. Fehr, F. H., Grossman, G. (2003).An introduction to sets, probability and hypothesis testing (3rded.). Ohio: Heath. Flick, U. (2015).Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research project (4thed.). New York: Sage Publications. Hair, J. F., Wolfinbarger, M., Money, A. H., Samouel, P., Page, M. J. (2015).Essentials of business research methods (2nded.). New York: Routledge. Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R. Friedman, J. (2011).The Elements of Statistical Learning (4thed.).New York: Springer Publications.