A method of analyzing vibrations of a rolling element bearing installed in a rotating machine includes accessing vibration data corresponding to the bearing to be analyzed, determining a degraded condition factor BD for the bearing, selecting an expected designer-determined mean-time-to-failure MTTF of the bearing operating under a design load in the operating environment of the rotating machine, selecting a forecast time period, calculating a reduced mean-time-to-failure RMTTF of the bearing using the expected designer-determined mean-time-to-failure MTTF and the degraded condition factor BD, calculating a probability of failure of the bearing in the forecast time period using the reduced mean time to failure RMTTF, accessing cost data corresponding to a cost of failure of the bearing in the rotating machine, calculating a financial risk from the calculated probability of failure in the forecast time period and the cost data, and displaying the financial risk for the selected time period.