Ted Rogers is the director of a research team that analyzes traditional and non-traditional sources of energy for investment purposes. For traditional energy sources, a number of high-frequency historical data series are available. For non-traditional energy sources, the data are generally quarterly and tend to hide a great deal of the volatility that Rogers knows to exist because appraised values are used instead of market values. To supplement the quarterly data, Rogers’s team uses an index of the top 30 firms in new and experimental technologies, called the “NEXT Index.” Although not all of the firms in the NEXT are energy firms, the index is available as a weekly series. However, the NEXT does change its composite mix of firms frequently as firms in the index fail or are sold to larger firms that are not in the index.
The quarterly data available for non-traditional energy sources are best described as data with a:
- smoothing bias.
- survivorship bias.
- time-period bias.
