Course 2 · Foundations
Reading Numbers Like an Analyst
像分析师一样读数据
Reading Numbers Like an Analyst is Kitalpha Course 2: 6 lessons, about 2.5 hours, free. Every lesson is anchored to a live Kitalpha record (Daily changes in U.S. Treasury par yields, the Henry Hub natural-gas series and the 2s10s spread history). General educational information only.
How to read a set of numbers the way an analyst does: where a series centres (mean, median, mode), how far it spreads (range and standard deviation), what a histogram and a percentile show, why skew and fat tails matter, and why two series that move together need not be linked. Six lessons on live Kitalpha records of daily Treasury-yield changes.
What you will be able to do
- Compute the mean, median and mode of a set of daily yield changes from a live record, and say what each one describes.
- Explain why the median describes a skewed series better than the mean, using the gap between the two on a live distribution.
- Calculate a standard deviation and interpret it as the spread of a series, comparing three Treasury tenors side by side.
- Read a distribution's shape from its histogram — its skew and how much of the sample sits in the tails — on a live record.
- Distinguish correlation from causation when two series move together on a scatter of their daily changes.
- Interpret a percentile or rank on a real series, and state what the figure says about where one value sits within a history.
Audience: Beginners comfortable with arithmetic; no prerequisites. Anyone who meets an average, a standard deviation or a percentile on a market page or in a data release and wants to know what the figure describes.
Lessons
- 01 Central tendency: where a set of numbers sits
Concept: central tendency · 9 min · done
- 02 Why the median for a lopsided sample: robustness to outliers
Concept: robustness to outliers · 9 min · done
- 03 Dispersion: range, variance and the standard deviation
Concept: dispersion as typical distance from the mean · 10 min · done
- 04 Distribution shape and tails: why a big move is an ordinary day
Concept: fat tails · 10 min · done
- 05 Correlation is not causation: two yields that move together
Concept: correlation as co-movement · 9 min · done
- 06 Percentiles and base rates: where today's value sits in its own history
Concept: percentiles · 10 min · done
Spaced review
After each lesson, review sets fall due at 1, 7 and 30 days — cumulative, and interleaved across lessons and record types. Due sets appear here.
Mastery task
The course ends with a transfer task: 6 items on the newest Kitalpha record you have not seen, pass mark 80%. On a fail, the missed items map to their lessons and a review of those lessons is scheduled before a retake. A completion page is issued only on mastery. Go to the mastery task →
Optional: plan your study (once)
Write when, where and how you will study, plus one obstacle and how you will get past it. Stored on this device only.
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