Introduction

Creating summary tables is a key part of data analysis, allowing you to see trends and patterns in your data. In this post, we’ll explore how to create these tables using tidyquant and dplyr in R. These packages make it easy to manipulate and summarize your data.

Examples

Using tidyquant for Summary Tables

tidyquant is a versatile package that extends the tidyverse for financial and time series analysis. It simplifies working with data by integrating tidy principles.

Example: Calculating Average Price by Month

Here’s an example of how to calculate the average price by month using tidyquant:

# Load necessary libraries
library(tidyquant)
library(dplyr)

# Sample data: Daily stock prices
data <- tibble(
  date = seq(as.Date('2023-01-01'), as.Date('2023-06-30'), by = 'day'),
  price = runif(181, 100, 200)
)

# Create a summary table with average closing price by month
summary_table <- data |>
  mutate(month = floor_date(date, "month")) |>
  pivot_table(
    .rows = month, 
    .values = ~ mean(price, na.rm = TRUE)
  ) |>
  setNames(c("date", "avg_price"))

print(summary_table)

# A tibble: 6 × 2
  date       avg_price
  <date>         <dbl>
1 2023-01-01      149.
2 2023-02-01      162.
3 2023-03-01      151.
4 2023-04-01      151.
5 2023-05-01      145.
6 2023-06-01      149.

In this example:

1. tidyquant and tibble are loaded to handle data manipulation.
2. We create a sample dataset with daily stock prices.
3. The mutate function adds a new column month, which extracts the month from each date.
4. pivot_table calculates the average price for each month.
5. Finally, we rename the columns for clarity.

Using dplyr for Summary Tables

dplyr is a core tidyverse package known for its powerful data manipulation functions. It helps streamline the process of filtering, summarizing, and mutating data.

Example: Calculating Average Closing Price by Month

Here’s a similar example using dplyr:

# Load necessary libraries
library(dplyr)
library(lubridate)

# Sample data: Daily stock prices
data <- tibble(
  date = seq(as.Date('2023-01-01'), as.Date('2023-06-30'), by = 'day'),
  price = runif(181, 100, 200)
)

# Create a summary table with average closing price by month
summary_table <- data %>%
  mutate(month = floor_date(date, "month")) %>%
  group_by(month) %>%
  summarise(avg_close = mean(price))

print(summary_table)

# A tibble: 6 × 2
  month      avg_close
  <date>         <dbl>
1 2023-01-01      149.
2 2023-02-01      140.
3 2023-03-01      147.
4 2023-04-01      146.
5 2023-05-01      147.
6 2023-06-01      151.

In this dplyr example:

1. We load dplyr and lubridate for data manipulation and date handling.
2. The dataset creation process is the same.
3. The mutate function is used to add a month column.
4. We group the data by month using group_by and then calculate the average closing price for each group using summarise.

Your Turn!

Using packages like tidyquant and dplyr simplifies data analysis tasks, making it easier to work with large datasets. These examples show just one way to create summary tables; there are many other functions and methods to explore. Give these examples a try with your own data and see how you can summarize and gain insights from your datasets.

Happy coding!