There are several forecasting methods that can be broadly segmented as either qualitative or quantitative. Within each category, there are several techniques at one's disposal. Under the qualitative methods, techniques may involve interviews, on-site visits, the Delphi method of pooling experts' opinions, focus groups, and text analysis of financial documents, news items, and so forth. Under quantitative methods, techniques generally employ statistical models that look at time series or cross-sectional data, such as econometric regression analysis or causal inference (when available).