To explore the macrocosm, forecaster went data way.

• Position: Black River Systems Corp. Pres Douglas Graham designs new software package for investors

In college, Douglas Graham was a self-styled "data grunt" whose job was to analyze raw information from tests at the White Sands missile range in New Mexico. There, he learned just how crucial numbers can be. The message hit home one day when a missile went astray and landed in a cemetery in a border town near El Paso, Texas. Graham describes the scene of the disinterred as a "grim picture."

Now, the former director of strategic planning for RJR Nabisco promises to put his number-crunching know-how to work for investors. As president of Winston-Salem-based Black River Systems Corp. (Douglas in Scottish means Black River), Graham, 49, is pushing Macro*World, a software package with a difference.

Typically, econometric models rely on economists' theories and cause-and-effect relationships. Graham depends instead on a vast database stored in four computers. Each day, the program sifts through 3,200 variables as dissimilar as the vacancy rates of office space in 39 urban centers, temperature and precipitation in nine cities and exchange rates of foreign currencies. Using these, the software makes economic forecasts based on historical patterns.

Graham's move into mathematical modeling has taken a circuitous route. Born in the Panama Canal Zone, Graham earned his master's degree in...