News & Insights
Prophesies, Oracles and omens – why you should ignore single point forecasts
We have to stop using single point projections of the recent past to justify decisions (see the oil prices forecasts below for one illustration). It’s a given that commodity prices and markets are both volatile and cyclical. Mining analysts typically present their forecasts as a series of single numbers (or...
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To cut or not to cut?
So which side is right? The question at the heart of the debate is whether mining companies can influence prices for their products. One side sees price as an externality in which their actions have little influence and the other side believes production decisions can actively shape price. For those...
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What is in a Forecast?
Forecasting as a human activity has a long history. In ancient Egypt, priests monitor the level and clarity of Nile River using the Nilometers. From the measurements, they predict how good the crops would be for the coming year. It is fair to say that these priests are one of...
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Bringing Analytics to Industry
In my experience, there are three crucial questions that an executive needs to be confident in answering, before committing their organization to analytics transformation - especially as it relates to working with an outside software partner. "Does their math fit our business?" "Do their people understand our business" "Can our...
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Monte Carlo: Taming The Unknown
Not all left behind from the WWII was destruction and despair; it gave birth to the first electronic programmable computer. Nicknamed the “Giant Brain”, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was born at UPenn under the supervision of Dr. John Mauchly an American physicist and Presper Eckert an Electrical Engineer. The year...
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