Author: Matt Dancho
Date: 2020-03-04

# Introduction to tidyquant

#### Matt Dancho

#### 2020-03-04

> Bringing financial and business analysis to the tidyverse

# Bringing Excel to R in tidyquant 1.0.0

> Tidyquant 1.0.0 is the “R for Excel Users” release. My aim is to build functionality that helps users coming from an Excel Background (background I came from). It’s important to have these users feel at home. I have a full suite of functionality to accomplish your Excel-to-R transition.

> -Matt

This document describes the Financial Workflow for stock and portfolio analysis. I have a separate blog tutorial for Excel users that want to implement the Excel functions in R.

# Financial Workflow Overview

`tidyquant` integrates the best resources for collecting and analyzing financial data, `xts` and `zoo`, `quantmod`, `TTR`, and `PerformanceAnalytics` with the tidy data infrastructure of the `tidyverse` allowing for seamless interaction between each.

The four primary quantitative packages that are the backbone for financial analysis in R programming are:

- xts, or eXtensible time series: The data structure for handling time-series data. The underlying time-series structure is `zoo`, which is also integrated.
- quantmod, or Quantitative Financial Modelling & Trading Framework for R: A package designed for retrieving, manipulating, and modeling quantitative data.
- TTR, or Technical Trading Rules: A package that includes various functions to compute technical trading equations for quantitative or trading data.
- PerformanceAnalytics: A package that includes a collection of econometric functions for performance and risk analysis. The package analyzes returns (not prices).

The tidy data principles are a cornerstone of data management and the data modeling workflow. The foundation for tidy data management is the `tidyverse`, a collection of R packages: `ggplot2`, `dplyr`, `tidyr`, `purrr`, `readr`, `tibble`, that work in harmony, are built for scaleability, and are well documented in R for Data Science. Using this infrastructure and the core tidy concepts, we can apply the tidy data principles to financial analysis using the R package, `tidyquant`.

## 2-Minutes To Tidyquant

Our short introduction to `tidyquant` on YouTube.

Check out our entire Software Intro Series on YouTube!

# Benefits

- A few core functions with a lot of power
- Integrates the quantitative analysis functionality of `zoo`, `xts`, `quantmod`, `TTR`, and `PerformanceAnalytics`
- Designed for modeling and scaling analyses using the the `tidyverse` tools in R for Data Science
- Implements `ggplot2` functionality for beautiful and meaningful financial visualizations
- User-friendly documentation to get you up to speed quickly!

## A Few Core Functions with A Lot of Power

Minimizing the number of functions reduces the learning curve. What we’ve done is group the core functions into four categories:

1. Get a Stock Index, `tq_index()`, or a Stock Exchange, `tq_exchange()`: Returns the stock symbols and various attributes for every stock in an index or exchange. Eighteen indexes and three exchanges are available.

2. Get Quantitative Data, `tq_get()`: A one-stop shop to get data from various web-sources.

3. Transmute, `tq_transmute()`, and Mutate, `tq_mutate()`, Quantitative Data: Perform and scale financial calculations completely within the `tidyverse`. These workhorse functions integrate the `xts`, `zoo`, `quantmod`, `TTR`, and `PerformanceAnalytics` packages.

4. Performance analysis, `tq_performance()`, and portfolio aggregation, `tq_portfolio()`: The `PerformanceAnalytics` integration enables analyzing performance of assets and portfolios. Refer to Performance Analysis with tidyquant.

For more information, refer to the first topic-specific vignette, Core Functions in tidyquant.

## Integrates the Quantitative Analysis Functionality of xts/zoo, quantmod TTR and Performance Analytics

There’s a wide range of useful quantitative analysis functions (QAF) that work with time-series objects. The problem is that many of these wonderful functions don’t work with data frames or the `tidyverse` workflow. That is until now. The `tidyquant` package integrates the most useful functions from the `xts`, `zoo`, `quantmod`, `TTR`, and `PerformanceAnalytics` packages, enabling seamless usage within the `tidyverse` workflow.

Refer below for information on the performance analysis and portfolio attribution with the `PerformanceAnalytics` integration.

For more information, refer to the second topic-specific vignette, R Quantitative Analysis Package Integrations in tidyquant.

## Designed for the data science workflow of the tidyverse

The greatest benefit to `tidyquant` is the ability to easily model and scale your financial analysis. Scaling is the process of creating an analysis for one security and then extending it to multiple groups. This idea of scaling is incredibly useful to financial analysts because typically one wants to compare many securities to make informed decisions. Fortunately, the `tidyquant` package integrates with the `tidyverse` making scaling super simple!

All `tidyquant` functions return data in the `tibble` (tidy data frame) format, which allows for interaction within the `tidyverse`. This means we can:

- Seamlessly scale data retrieval and mutations
- Use the pipe (`%>%`) for chaining operations
- Use `dplyr` and `tidyr`: `select`, `filter`, `group_by`, `nest`/`unnest`, `spread`/`gather`, etc
- Use `purrr`: mapping functions with `map`

For more information, refer to the third topic-specific vignette, Scaling and Modeling with tidyquant.

## Implements ggplot2 Functionality for Financial Visualizations

The `tidyquant` package includes charting tools to assist users in developing quick visualizations in `ggplot2` using the grammar of graphics format and workflow.

For more information, refer to the fourth topic-specific vignette, Charting with tidyquant.

## Performance Analysis of Asset and Portfolio Returns

Asset and portfolio performance analysis is a deep field with a wide range of theories and methods for analyzing risk versus reward. The `PerformanceAnalytics` package consolidates many of the most widely used performance metrics as functions that can be applied to stock or portfolio returns. `tidquant` implements the functionality with two primary functions:

- `tq_performance` implements the performance analysis functions in a tidy way, enabling scaling analysis using the split, apply, combine framework.
- `tq_portfolio` provides a useful toolset for aggregating a group of individual asset returns into one or many portfolios.

Performance is based on the statistical properties of returns, and as a result both functions use returns as opposed to stock prices.

For more information, refer to the fifth topic-specific vignette, Performance Analysis with tidyquant.