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Matlab Lecture 1b

This document provides an introduction to using Matlab. It describes what Matlab is and how it can be used as a calculator, programming language, and tool for data analysis and producing plots. It outlines the course and covers basics like accessing Matlab, using variables, elementary algebra operations, finding and loading data, writing functions, and getting help. Key functions introduced include plot, subplot, and stats functions like mean, variance, and correlation. The document emphasizes practicing in Matlab to become comfortable with it.

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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
285 views

Matlab Lecture 1b

This document provides an introduction to using Matlab. It describes what Matlab is and how it can be used as a calculator, programming language, and tool for data analysis and producing plots. It outlines the course and covers basics like accessing Matlab, using variables, elementary algebra operations, finding and loading data, writing functions, and getting help. Key functions introduced include plot, subplot, and stats functions like mean, variance, and correlation. The document emphasizes practicing in Matlab to become comfortable with it.

Uploaded by

api-3824811
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Introduction to Matlab

Lecture 1: Getting Started

Dr. Jack Favilukis (A313)


http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~jfaviluk/teaching.html
Office Hours: Wed 14:30-15:30; Thu 16:30-17:30
What is Matlab?
• “The Language of Technological
Computing”
• A very fancy calculator
• A simple and user friendly
programming language
• A tool for data analysis and statistics
• A tool to produce plots
Accessing Matlab
Basics
• From LSE library:
Start/Programs/Teaching/Matlab R2007a
• If can’t find it, try searching for matlab.exe
• Great online tutorial:
http://web.mit.edu/olh/Matlab/Matlab.html
• Company Website: http://www.mathworks.com/
Course Outline

• Introduction to Matlab
• Simulation
• Portfolio Analysis
• Statistics and Time Series
• Fixed Income
• Options

Only by practicing what you see in


class will you get comfortable with
Matlab!!!
.m files

• .m files are just


text files
• Do work in .m file
• Paste work into
Matlab prompt
• Use ; to end lines
• Save .m files
• Use % to add comments
The Matlab Prompt

• >> denotes where you type commands


• Type or paste commands, then hit enter
• If entering multiple commands, separate them by ;
• Multiple commands may be on same line, as long as they
are separated by ;
• Ending a command with ; also tells matlab to not display
the output
• If want output displayed, do not use ;
• >>2+2
ans =
4
>>
Variables

• Variables are the basic building blocks


• Capitalization matters, x not same as X
• Matrix is a variable that contains multiple
entries, i.e. V=[.98 1.02 .99 1.07];
• Matlab is great with vectors and matrices,
however, their orientation and size matter
• You will get errors if try to add vectors of
different size or different orientation
Basic Operations

• Always use brackets [ ] to define matrices


• Always use prentices ( ) to call values of
matrices
• The row is always first, the column is
always second, i.e. M1(3,2) is not the
same as M1(2,3)
• To see which variables exist, use >>whos
• To delete variables, use >>clear x y
• To find out size use >>size(M1)
Elementary Algebra

• Use +, -, *, / for basic operations


• Use ./ and .* for element by element
operations on matrices and vectors
• Use / and * for matrix multiplication, but this
only makes sense if you’ve taken Linear
Algebra
• Use ‘ to transpose a matrix
• You can always multiply a matrix by a
scalar
• You can always overwrite old variables
Ranges of numbers

• Colon specifies range of numbers


• >>V3=[1:5] sets V3 to be the numbers 1
through 5
• >>V3=[1:3:13]’ sets V3 to be the numbers 1
through 13, skipping every 3rd, note, it is
transposed
• >>M5=M1(1:2,1:5) sets M5 to be all the
numbers in rows 1-2 and columns 1-5 of M1
• >>V3=M1(:,2) sets V3 to be the whole
second column of M1
Finding Data: Yahoo

• Go to finance.yahoo.com
• Enter a quote and hit get quotes
• Click on historical prices
• Enter a date range, scroll to bottom and click
Download To Spreadsheet
• Open spreadsheet in Excel
• Problem: dates come out weird if load into
Matlab
• Problem: this gives prices, usually need to
convert them to returns
Finding Data: WRDS

• Go to wrds.wharton.upenn.edu/connect
• Select dataset (i.e. CRSP)
• Select series (i.e. daily stocks)
• Select company name (i.e. VLCM) and
which info you want (i.e. prices and holding
period return)
• Click submit request and wait a moment
• Open the text file
• CRSP has historical stock and bond data,
COMPUSTAT has accounting data
CRSP output
Loading Data

• Open new .m file


• Type dataset=[ ];
• Copy all of the data from your Excel or text file and
paste it inside [ ]
• Save the .m file in Matlab’s work directory (this
should be the default directory), for example call it
matlabin.m
• At the Matlab prompt type: matlabin;
• This executes any code in the file matlabin.m
• Inside matlabin.m you have defined a matrix called
dataset, this matrix now exists in Matlab’s memory
just like any other matrix.
Potential Problems

• All rows must have same size!!!!!!!!


• Matlab only knows numbers, it will give you errors if
there are any letters in what you pasted!!!!!!!
• Do not include field headings in your copy/paste
• Date formats (i.e. 28-Dec-1979) may be
problematic. If pasting from Excel, I suggest not
pasting dates, or formatting them to numbers.
• Don’t forget semicolon, otherwise all data will
appear on screen
• This procedure may crash your computer if dataset
is too big (50000 numbers should be no problem)
Writing Data

• Matlab can write any variable to a text file


• >>dlmwrite(‘filename.txt’, X, ’ ’);
• You can then open this text file manually,
or have Excel open it
• If open in notepad, sometimes line breaks
look weird. Just open it in something else,
like Word or Wordpad
• dlmread exisits but I don’t use it
Useful functions
More functions

• >>var(dataset(:,4)) %variance
• >>cov(dataset(:,4),bp(:,4)) %similar to corrcoef but
gives the variance and covariance
• >>sum(dataset(:,4)) %adds up all numbers in the
4th row of dataset
• >>abs(x) %absolute value
• >>x.^3 %takes powers (note, . only needed for
element by element)
• >>exp(x) %exponent
• >>sqrt(x) %square root
• >>round(x) %rounds to nearest integer
Plots
• >>[a b]=size(dataset); t=1:a;
• >>plot(t,dataset(:,4),’b’);
Plots
• >>hold on;
• >>plot(t,bp(:,4),’r--’);
Multiple plots
• >>hold off;
• >>subplot(2,1,1);
• >>plot(t,dataset(:,3),’b’);
• >>subplot(2,1,2);
• >>plot(dataset(:,4),bp(:,4),’k.’);
Labels
• >>xlabel(‘Volcom’);
• >>ylabel(‘British Petroleum’);
• >>title(‘Scatter Plot’);
Saving your work
• >>save workspace1 x y % saves the
variables x and y in a file called
workspace1.mat
• >>save workspace1 % saves all variables
in workspace1.mat
• >>load workspace1 % loads the variables
in workspace1.mat
• >>clear all % deletes all variables
Getting help
• >>help %lists topic areas, for example one
of these is graph2d
• >>help graph2d %lists functions within
graph2d, for example plot
• >>help plot %gives help on plot
• >>lookfor keyword %searches for
keywords within help, pretty slow
Next week
• Logic
• Loops
• Creating your own functions
Functions we learned

• General: whos, clear, size, dlmwrite, save


• Matrix: zeros, ones, whos
• Math: +, -, *, /, ^,sum, exp, abs, sqrt, round
• Stats: min, max, mean, std, corrcoef, var,
cov
• Plots: plot, hold, subplot, xlabel, ylabel, title

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