Exercise J: Interpreting Graphs in Context
Prompt
You are working with a client as a financial advisor, and you have produced a graph to help your client understand how each of the investment accounts will behave over time. Write your client a paragraph outlining an investment forecast and recommending in which type of account they should invest.
Considerations
In your paragraph, to support your claims you should use comparisons of the data and an explanation of the chart trendlines on the next tab. Address whether the client is looking to invest short term (five years or less) or long term (longer than five years).
Discussion
- With your teammates, and then with the whole class, discuss: Which type of account did you recommend? How was your recommendation influenced by the duration of the investment? (i.e., why does the contextual information about the client’s investment duration matter, and how does it influence your recommendation?)
- Which of the chart types on the following Excel page, titled “Chart Types” will be most useful for supporting your recommendations? Why?
