Numerical Computing with Python

How to do it...

1. Load Amazon stock data and set the date as the index:

>>> amzn = pd.read_csv('data/amzn_stock.csv', index_col='Date',                      parse_dates=['Date'])>>> amzn.head()

2. Create a Series by selecting only the closing price and then using the pct_change method to get the daily rate of return:

>>> amzn_daily_return = amzn.Close.pct_change()>>> amzn_daily_return.head()Date
2010-01-04         NaN
2010-01-05    0.005900
2010-01-06   -0.018116
2010-01-07   -0.017013
2010-01-08    0.027077
Name: Close, dtype: float64

3. Drop the missing value and plot a histogram of the returns to visually inspect the distribution:

>>> amzn_daily_return = amzn_daily_return.dropna() ...