Despite the chant that correlation is not causation, some researchers believe the design of scatter plots nudges us to the wrong conclusions. Can a change in their design lessen that risk? Analyzing ...

Before I started playing Guess the Correlation, I didn’t expect to spend an hour of my Easter weekend obsessing over an 8-bit video game, much less one based on something that many scientists do every ...

So, you want to know how to create a scatter plot in Excel. Chances are, you probably already know what the term means, but given Microsoft Excel’s arsenal of options packed into each tab, getting ...

The oft-repeated mantra that correlation does not imply causation is not always effective. The media, the general public, and even scientists themselves, are often guilty of seeing cause-and-effect ...

An example of a scatter graph. This graph shows the relationship between a recorded temperature and the number of drinks sold. To produce a scatter diagram, data is required. The data often comes in ...

If you understand the definition of a mathematical function, a good way to judge it is that any line drawn parallel to the y-axis intersects with the values in the function’s curve only once. The same ...

A correlation tells you how two financial variables move together. Financial variables can be assets like stock prices, and bond yields or economic indicators like interest rates. The direction in ...

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...