Economic Indicators and S&P Composite Returns
from 1901-2008 A Dashboard to Explore Past, Present and Future Results
When creating a dashboard, two critical questions to ask include, “what are the right metrics” and “what collection of graphs will optimize exploration and understanding from a complex relationship between multiple metrics”? This example uses historic economic and stock market data to explore these concepts and to provide powerful insights into stock market patterns relative to economic conditions. This interactive dashboard is powered by tableau public, a new service of Tableau Software. One means of interacting with this dashboard is data point brushing, highlight data in a part of the dashboard by single-clicking and dragging
I recently pondered the value of a great analyst to a mid-sized public company (revenues around $1-2 billion.) Based on my experience at multiple companies, I estimate the productivity, typical project benefits, and costs of an average, good and great analyst. The differences in the return to a company are staggering with great analysts yielding double the ROI of a good analyst and triple the ROI of an average analyst!
My conservative estimates of analyst project results (annual value to the firm) are $460k for average analysts, $1.2m for good analysts and $3.1m for great analysts!
There are two primary drivers behind the much higher value produced by great analysts (illustrated in the following graph):
Thanks for all of your kind comments and wonderful feedback! I will try to get back to as many of you as the last few weeks of writing the book allows!
Executive Summary
Which “green” activities are consumers performing in their everyday lives? Activities that-
– Save them money?
– Are easy to do?
– Are the most beneficial to the environment?
– Some combination of the three?
By combining insights from a recent survey of consumer behavior with expert opinion on green activities I found that:
– Activities that experts rank as the most beneficial for the environment are not always performed frequently by consumers.
– Economic benefit to the consumer is a stronger predictor of frequently-performed activities than environmental benefit.
– However, convenience to the consumer is the best predictor of green behavior!
Decision-makers for sustainability programs can tailor this method to their particular location by:
– Compiling a list of green activities specific to their region.
– Surveying local consumers and experts.
– Altering which dimensions are included in assessing the importance of various green activities.
“Newcomer” communities can maximize the impact of launching their green programs by:
– Prioritizing activities that are convenient and economical for the consumer.
– Motivating consumers with educational programs and incentives.
– Waiting until the environmental program has gotten off the ground before encouraging activities that are low in convenience and economic benefit- unless they can be financially subsidized.
Economic Indicators and S&P Composite Returns
