Moving Averages

 

Moving averages are in the news thanks to the Corona virus. They takes the major fluctuations out of data that might otherwise jump around a lot. The following graph shows this. There are fluctuations during the week because of the nature of the work week. I'm not exactly sure why, but maybe Mondays usually show more positive cases than Fridays. The following graph shows this situation in Georgia, but I think this kind of thing can be found in pretty much any state. And after that is some information from Investopedia. 

Understanding Moving Average (MA)

Moving average is a simple, technical analysis tool. Moving averages are usually calculated to identify the trend direction of a stock or to determine its support and resistance levels. It is a trend-following, or lagging, indicator because it is based on past prices.

The longer the time period for the moving average, the greater the lag. The 50-day and 200-day moving average figures for stocks are widely followed by investors and traders and are considered to be important trading signals. 

Moving averages are a totally customizable indicator, which means that an investor can freely choose whatever time frame they want when calculating an average. The most common time periods used in MA's are 15, 20, 30, 50, 100, and 200 days. The longer the time span, the less sensitive the average will be.

There is no correct time frame to use when setting up your MA's. The best way to figure out which one works best for you is to experiment with a number of different time periods until you find one that fits your strategy.

Moving averages, a.k.a. running or rolling averages, that I've see, usually use 3 or 7 data points at at time. I had no idea as many as 200 were ever used.

I randomly picked a baseball player from the past and found his number of home runs each season. Incidentally, I once heard a baseball stat man say it would take about three seasons to get an accurate picture of how good a batter is. Now that I think about it, that makes sense, At about 500 at-bats a season, that would be 1,500 at-bats total. I saw on-line that the Pew Research center will typically survey 1,500 people at a time.

Anyway - here are Mickey Mantle's home run totals each season. Then a rolling average, three years at a time, then five years at a time. Notice, it gets a little less bumpy each time.

13, 23, 21, 27, 37, 52, 34, 42, 31, 40, 54, 30, 15, 35, 19, 23, 22, 18

            19, 24, 28, 39, 41, 43, 36, 38, 42, 41, 33, 27, 23, 26, 21, 21

                        24, 34, 34, 38, 39, 40, 40, 39, 34, 35, 31, 24, 23, 23

Fires

There has been a lot of fire action in the West the last couple of weeks. And as time went by there was a lot of smoke. I got an air quality app. I was wondering why the graph chopped off at 500. My app said we were well into the 500's. I learned that that was as high as the chart goes. We were literally off the chart. I guess they assume you aren't going to have numbers like that. Our house was never in imminent danger of fire. They had a map on the news that had green areas meaning "Get prepared to maybe leave", and yellow was "Get ready to go, and red was "Go now". Our house looked to be 5 to 10 miles from the green and maybe 10 to 15 from the yellow. So, a bit concerning, but not too bad. I figured we're in a city, not a forest. I guess I never really paid attention to how many trees there are on our street. There are a disturbing number.

But everything is much better now. When I was in high school / college I had a summer crap job of working in a youth parks program. That is when I learned I was not cut out for manual labor. We built trails and dug ditches and paved a parking lot. Yes, I was literally part of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. Its not as much fun as it looks like. My job in paving was to be above where the tar comes from the dump truck, down a chute. I was standing above that bin and was to keep the tar moving along with some kind of stick they gave me. It was about 105 degrees those days and the tar itself was about a billion degrees. And if you've smelled fresh tar before you know its not pleasant. I spent hours right on top of that heat and smell.

Anyway, for about a week there was a big forest fire that they used us for to help "mop up". That was kind of fun. One time we were kind of on the front lines, but otherwise we just had a hoe or shovel and found smoldering places and put those out. We also had back pack filled with water and a squirt gun thing attached. That was super fun.

I'll never forget the lunches. I hope they've improved. Some kind of meat sandwich with almost no mayonnaise and an 8 oz can of unsweetened grapefruit juice. That was nasty. I was maybe the thirstiest I'd ever been. But, I lived and had an adventure, so that was cool. 

Tipping

 We'll I've gotten back on the horse and ready to do more math application blogs. I took a few months off. Not for any particularly good reason, although I did move. Piece of advice - Try not to move. Or at least make enough money to afford to pay one of those companies that will do everything for you.

Speaking of that, how much should you tip them? I don't know if you actually tip moving people, but its a transition (no idea how to spell "segway") into my post. 

First of all, I have a thing about tipping. The really important people don't get tipped - doctors, emt's, teachers, firemen. Its mostly people in a restaurant that take your order and your money. As restaurant workers go, they really aren't the hardest workers there. The cooks aren't getting tipped. The bus boy isn't getting tipped. The night time custodian isn't getting tipped. Plus, I'm even more annoyed when the credit card machine asks you how much you want to tip. I had that happen at a place where I got my own drink and all the server did was hand me a donut (that someone else made). Does that really deserve a tip?

Anyway, they say 10% isn't enough anymore. So now I'm not just bothered, I'm mathematically bothered. Apparently, tipping needs to go up to at least 15% because of inflation. That is either greed or a lack of understanding of how percentages work. 

Something used to cost $100 dollars, and lets say now it costs $140. A 10% tip would have meant a $10 tip. Present day, your 10% tip is $14. Yes, there is inflation, but the percent takes care of that. If prices go up and you still tip at 10%, the amount of your tip goes up. And what would 15% of $140 be? $21.

At cash registers that give you choices of tips, 15% seems to be the low end. It should still be 10% if it even exists at all. 

Whose idea was this? I'm guessing the people getting the tips. I don't want to be rude, but I you did betting in school you probably would understand percentages better and you wouldn't be working as a server in a restaurant to begin with.

Note - Future blogs will not be as mean spirited.