Calculating the difference between two rows in Python / Pandas

Question

In python, how can I reference the previous row and calculate something against it? Specifically, I am working with dataframes in pandas - I have a data frame full of stock price information that looks like this:

           Date   Close Adj Close

251  2011-01-03  147.48 143.25

250  2011-01-04  147.64 143.41

249  2011-01-05  147.05 142.83

248  2011-01-06  148.66 144.40

247  2011-01-07  147.93 143.69

Here is how I created this dataframe:

import pandas

url = 'http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=IBM&a=00&b=1&c=2011&d=11&e=31&f=2011&g=d&ignore=.csv'

data = data = pandas.read_csv(url)

## now I sorted the data frame ascending by date 

data = data.sort(columns='Date')

Starting with row number 2, or in this case, I guess it's 250 (PS - is that the index?), I want to calculate the difference between 2011-01-03 and 2011-01-04, for every entry in this dataframe. I believe the appropriate way is to write a function that takes the current row, then figures out the previous row, and calculates the difference between them, the use the pandas apply the function to update the dataframe with the value.

Is that the right approach? If so, should I be using the index to determine the difference? (note - I'm still in python beginner mode, so index may not be the right term, nor even the correct way to implement this)

Answer 1

You can refer the following code which calculates the difference between the rows:

In [26]: data

Out[26]: 

           Date   Close Adj Close

251  2011-01-03  147.48 143.25

250  2011-01-04  147.64 143.41

249  2011-01-05  147.05 142.83

248  2011-01-06  148.66 144.40

247  2011-01-07  147.93 143.69

In [27]: data.set_index('Date').diff()

Out[27]: 

            Close  Adj Close

Date                        

2011-01-03    NaN NaN

2011-01-04   0.16 0.16

2011-01-05  -0.59 -0.58

2011-01-06   1.61 1.57

2011-01-07  -0.73 -0.71

If you are interested in learning Pandas and want to become an expert in Python Programming, then check out this Python Course and upskill yourself.