By Adriana Noton

It is about time that the average businessman and the small business or company takes business statistics seriously. This kind of information can help small businesses and corporations deal with the rough and tumble of the business world and assist them in adjusting strategy and survival in the long run. The failure to understand such data will in turn cause these businesses to fail and in the end they will not know what hit them.

One can therefore ask beforehand where to gather such information that is so crucial to our running our organizations and businesses? Most if not all of the time we can get these kinds of information in newspapers that we read every day and watch it on the television from a variety of shows on business, especially the news. Data that is of a longer duration and can be used for forecasts are given out by government agencies. Business data can be divided into financial and market data as first stipulated above.

Information that deals with interest rates, accounts, bank data, savings and loans associations and Federal Reserve data in the United States is called financial data or financial information. Central banks in other countries are the counterparts of the Federal Reserve in supplying this data to their constituents. Thus all things related to interest rates, savings and loans, inflation rates and the like are all considered as financial data.

It also covers data on financial instruments such as savings bonds, coupon bonds and government bonds. This data is extremely helpful for you and your business. With this you know where the cheapest place to borrow money from for your needs is and also where is the best option to store your money with the biggest returns.

Financial data also covers long term data such as inflation rates. This is a very important statistic for it shows you how your money, whether it be in dollars or otherwise, becomes weaker as the years and months progress. For example if the inflation rate in your country is ten percent, it means that what used to cost one dollar will now cost one dollar and ten cents.

In sum it means that the purchasing power of your money has decreased by fifteen percent. To buy something that you used to buy, you will have to spend fifteen percent more. Some countries have inflation rates ranging in the thousands of percent. You can just imagine how volatile their prices change yearly.

Market data are data that deal with overall markets like the DOW Jones Average or Index and the NASDAQ. The Dow Jones Index or Average is an indicator of how the top 500 companies in the United States are doing. Thus if they are doing well then this indicator is up. If they are not doing well then it goes down. This serves as a general indicator of the American economy. When you are forecasting you require last years business statistics.

The NASDAQ on the other hand is the relative performance of some thirty to two hundred high technology companies. It shows the general performance of technology companies just like the Dow Jones shows it for the top five hundred companies. Thus if the technology sector is doing well then this indicator goes up, if not then it goes down.

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