A financial forecast is an estimate of future financial outcomes for a company or project, usually applied in budgeting, capital budgeting and / or valuation. Depending on context, the term may also refer to listed company (quarterly) earnings guidance. For a country or economy, see Economic forecast. Typically, using historical internal accounting and sales data, in addition to external industry data and economic indicators, a financial forecast will be the analyst's modeled prediction of company outcomes in financial terms over a given time period. For the components / steps of business modeling here, see Outline of finance § Financial modeling. Arguably, the key aspect of preparing a financial forecast is predicting revenue; future costs, fixed and variable, as well as capital, can then be estimated as a function of sales via "common-sized analysis" - where relationships are derived from historical financial ratios and other accounting relationships. At the same time, the resultant line items must talk to the business' operations:- in general, growth in revenue will require corresponding increases in working capital, fixed assets (see, here, owner earnings...

Here's why and how your small business should engage in financial forecasting.

Much of Southern California remains under threat of wildfire Wednesday amid strong Santa Ana winds and low humidity.

The New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles are scheduled to begin a four-game series at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020 (9/10/20).

A credit rating is an evaluation of the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, a business, company or a government), predicting their ability to pay back the debt, and an implicit forecast of the likelihood of the debtor defaulting. The credit rating represents an evaluation from a credit rating agency of the qualitative and quantitative information for the prospective debtor, including information provided by the prospective debtor and other non-public information obtained by the credit rating agency's analysts. Credit reporting (or credit score) – is a subset of credit rating – it is a numeric evaluation of an individual's credit worthiness, which is done by a credit bureau or consumer credit reporting agency. Sovereign credit ratings A sovereign credit rating is the credit rating of a sovereign entity, such as a national government. The sovereign credit rating indicates the risk level of the investing environment of a country and is used by investors when looking to invest in particular jurisdictions, and also takes into account political risk. The "country risk rankings" table...

The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 of the largest companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of December 31, 2021, according to surveys, more than $7.1 trillion was invested in assets tied to the performance of the index.The S&P 500 index is a free-float weighted/capitalization-weighted index. As of September 30, 2023, the nine largest companies on the list of S&P 500 companies accounted for 30.6% of the market capitalization of the index and were, in order of highest to lowest weighting: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Nvidia, Alphabet (including both class A & C shares), Tesla, Meta Platforms, Berkshire Hathaway, and Exxon Mobil. The components that have increased their dividends in 25 consecutive years are known as the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats.: 25 The index is one of the factors in computation of the Conference Board Leading Economic Index, used to forecast the direction...

Persistence may refer to: Math and computers Image persistence, in LCD monitors Persistence (computer science), the characteristic of data that outlives the execution of the program that created it Persistence of a number, a mathematical quality of numbers Persistent data structure, a data structure that always preserves the previous version of itself when it is modified Persistent world, in virtual reality and computer gamesScience Multidrug tolerance, a dormant, persistent state of a bacterial population Persistence (botany), describing plant parts that remain attached to the plant after completing their function Persistence (discontinuity), a concept in geotechnical engineering Persistence (linguistics), a principle of grammaticalization Persistence (psychology), a personality trait Persistence of vision, a theory on how the illusion of motion in films is achieved Persistence forecasting, predicting the future to be the same as the presentOther...

Forecasters issue a red-flag fire weather warning starting Tuesday at noon as winds are predicted to pick up in late afternoon