data

  

-Go to the following web address:
 

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?pc
 

-Click the box next to a commodity ("Carbon Black", for example), then select "Retrieve Data" at the bottom of the screen. Once the data is pulled up, choose a date range that covers 5 years, beginning with either your birth year (if born after 1983), or with the year you graduated high school (if born before 1983).  If you graduated HS before 1983, choose 1983 as your starting year.
 

-Once that data is retrieved (5 years in total), click the Excel icon to download the data to Excel and perform the following operations:
 

-Calculate the mean and standard deviation of each year's prices for this commodity.  Which year had the most relative variation (CV)?
 

-Choose one year and make a line graph of commodity price fluctuations during that year.
 

-Choose 2 different years and use an Excel function to calculate their degree of correlation. What does this r-value say about the strength and direction of their linear relationship?
 

-Construct a histogram of all of the prices for the same period (for all 5 years).  Does the distribution appear to be normally shaped?
 

-Are there any unusually high or unusually low prices?  Any outliers?  If so, list the number of values that fit in these categories, and give the values. Clearly present how you calculated these.