calculate exponential moving average in python

Question

I have a range of dates and a measurement on each of those dates. I'd like to calculate an exponential moving average for each of the dates. Does anybody know how to do this?

I'm new to python. It doesn't appear that averages are built into the standard python library, which strikes me as a little odd. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place.

So, given the following code, how could I calculate the moving weighted average of IQ points for calendar dates?

from datetime import date
days = [date(2008,1,1), date(2008,1,2), date(2008,1,7)]
IQ = [110, 105, 90]

(there's probably a better way to structure the data, any advice would be appreciated)

Answer 1

In matplotlib.org examples (http://matplotlib.org/examples/pylab_examples/finance_work2.html) is provided one good example of Exponential Moving Average (EMA) function using numpy:

def moving_average(x, n, type):
    x = np.asarray(x)
    if type=='simple':
        weights = np.ones(n)
    else:
        weights = np.exp(np.linspace(-1., 0., n))

    weights /= weights.sum()

    a =  np.convolve(x, weights, mode='full')[:len(x)]
    a[:n] = a[n]
    return a

Answer 2

I am using a list and a rate of decay as inputs. I hope this little function with just two lines may help you here, considering deep recursion is not stable in python.

def expma(aseries, ratio):
    return sum([ratio*aseries[-x-1]*((1-ratio)**x) for x in range(len(aseries))])

Answer 3

I don't know Python, but for the averaging part, do you mean an exponentially decaying low-pass filter of the form

y_new = y_old + (input - y_old)*alpha

where alpha = dt/tau, dt = the timestep of the filter, tau = the time constant of the filter? (the variable-timestep form of this is as follows, just clip dt/tau to not be more than 1.0)

y_new = y_old + (input - y_old)*dt/tau

If you want to filter something like a date, make sure you convert to a floating-point quantity like # of seconds since Jan 1 1970.

Answer 4

I did a bit of googling and I found the following sample code (http://osdir.com/ml/python.matplotlib.general/2005-04/msg00044.html):

def ema(s, n):
    """
    returns an n period exponential moving average for
    the time series s

    s is a list ordered from oldest (index 0) to most
    recent (index -1)
    n is an integer

    returns a numeric array of the exponential
    moving average
    """
    s = array(s)
    ema = []
    j = 1

    #get n sma first and calculate the next n period ema
    sma = sum(s[:n]) / n
    multiplier = 2 / float(1 + n)
    ema.append(sma)

    #EMA(current) = ( (Price(current) - EMA(prev) ) x Multiplier) + EMA(prev)
    ema.append(( (s[n] - sma) * multiplier) + sma)

    #now calculate the rest of the values
    for i in s[n+1:]:
        tmp = ( (i - ema[j]) * multiplier) + ema[j]
        j = j + 1
        ema.append(tmp)

    return ema

Answer 5

A fast way (copy-pasted from here) is the following:

def ExpMovingAverage(values, window):
    """ Numpy implementation of EMA
    """
    weights = np.exp(np.linspace(-1., 0., window))
    weights /= weights.sum()
    a =  np.convolve(values, weights, mode='full')[:len(values)]
    a[:window] = a[window]
    return a