Using the mean absolute deviation as your performance criterion, compare the two forecasting methods you used in A and B. Which method would you recommend as a more reliable predictor? Why?

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A. Based on the numbers in the table above, forecast the sales (by month) from March through December using a 2–month weighted moving average. Use the weights of (3/4) and (1/4), giving more weight to more recent data.

B. Forecast the sales for the months of March through December using exponential smoothing with α = 0.7 beginning with an initial forecast in January of $3,000 and starting error measurement in March.

C. Using the mean absolute deviation as your performance criterion (with error measurement beginning in March), compare the two forecasting methods you used in A and B. Which method would you recommend as a more reliable predictor? Why?

D. Using the mean percent error as your performance criterion (with error measurement beginning in March), compare the two forecasting methods you used in A and B. Which method would you recommend as a more reliable predictor? Why?