Transition Year Financial Statistics Project

Transition Year Financial Statistics Project

by Eoin Callaghan, Dr John McCallig and Dr Maria Meehan

Pilot Version October 2014

The aim of this project is to show transition year students how mathematical and statistical concepts are used every day by millions of business people to solve problems and make decisions. Share prices have been chosen as the data in this project because of their easy availability and the frequency with which they are discussed in the media. This project shows students how very simple mathematics and statistics can be used to analyse investments.

This project also aims to integrate the business knowledge necessary to understand how share prices work with the mathematical and statistical knowledge necessary to analyse them. The project is intended to be as self-explanatory as possible and requires little prior-knowledge.

The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to the staff and students of Mount Anville Secondary School. In particular, Aoife Harrison and Louise Gilmore helped Eoin Callaghan to develop this project and to pilot it with the transition year class of 2013.

Please send any comments, queries or feedback to John.McCallig@ucd.ie. Any feedback you have on the pilot version of the project is very welcome. We are particularly interested in how the project can be used in the classroom.

Documents

Transition Year Financial Statistics Project Guide

Transition Year Financial Statistics Solutions to Exercises

Videos

Stock Market Investment Video at HEAnet Media Hosting

Example 2.1 Constructing Share Price Graphs at HEAnet Media Hosting

Example 2.1 Interpreting Share Price Graphs at HEAnet

Example 2.2 Constructing Share Volume Graphs at HEAnet

Example 2.2 Interpreting Share Volume Graphs at HEAnet

Stock Market Returns and Index Notation at HEAnet

Example 3.3 Calculating Apple's Monthly Stock Returns at HEAnet

Example 4.2 Calculating the Mean at HEAnet

Example 4.4 Calculating the Variance

Example 4.6 Calculating the Standard Deviation

Using Graphs and Statistics to Analyse Investments