Norm Marks has recently been assigned the responsibility of forecasting the demand for P2CL, a...

Norm Marks has recently been assigned the responsibility of forecasting the demand for P2CL, a coating produced by C hem Co that is used to line beer cans. He has decided to begin by trying to forecast beer, wine, and liquor sales and has hired you as an outside consultant for this purpose.

a. Go to the http://www.economagic.com and/or Business Statistics and gather data on retail monthly beer, wine, and liquor store sales for a recent four-year period. Prepare a time-series plot of the data. Use data that is not seasonally adjusted (usually noted by “NSA”).

b. Develop a multiple-regression trend model with monthly dummy variables for February (M2) through December (M12) for beer, wine, and liquor sales (i.e., use January as the base period). Summarize your findings:

Write a paragraph in which you communicate your findings to Norm Marks.

c. Prepare a forecast for the year following the four years for which you collected data.