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Creating Investment Insights

· 6 min read
Dr. Anja Vinzelberg

Create insights using SMART Timeseries

In this blog we show you how to easily add logic to your time series data in OpenDataDSL to gain insights into which industries have made the greatest return on an investment.

Introduction

By following certain steps, you can add logic to data to generate insights that support your organization's goals and objectives. It's important to remember that the process of adding logic to data is an ongoing one, and requires continuous monitoring and refinement to ensure that the data remains relevant and effective.

To add logic to data, you can follow these steps:

Sample: Cumulative gain from an investment

Business Requirement

We demonstrate the cumulative gain from a particular investment over a given period. Assuming $1 was invested at the beginning of a period, we compound the investment value, month by month, by 1 plus the return of the industry portfolio. We compare the investment of $1 for different holding periods of 5 years or 50 years or even forever starting in 1927, 1972 and 2018.

Data input source

We consider United States related input data of market value weighted equity portfolios representing 5 industry sectors listed below and whose monthly return data can be found in the online database of Kenneth R. French's website. For further analysis we store the monthly returns available for the time horizon July 1926 until December 2022 as time series in ODSL using the Excel-Addin or a loader.

The list of the 5 Industries:

  • CNSUMR: Consumer Durables, Nondurables, Wholesale, Retail, and Some Services (Laundries, Repair Shops)
  • MANUF: Manufacturing, Energy, and Utilities
  • HITEC: Business Equipment, Telephone and Television Transmission
  • HLTH: Healthcare, Medical Equipment, and Drugs
  • OTHER: Other: Mines, Construction, Construction Materials, Transportation, Hotels, Business Services, Entertainment, Finance

On the website of Kenneth R. French you get further information on the industry portfolio composition, but basically each NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ stock got assigned to an industry portfolio and the returns got computed.

Data model logic

ODSL 4GL scripting language helps to add the data model logic in a smart way considering calendars, frequencies, handling missing values, any kind of conversion or other business challenges.

The logic for the cumulative gain of putting $1 into an investment is placed into a script to be available in the ODSL Web Portal:

/**
* Cumulative product function
* @param series The raw returns timeseries
* @param start The start date of the calculation
* @param sval The starting value of the investment
*/
function cfunc(series, start, sval)
// Get the previous index of the calendar as a starting point for our calc
pindex = series.calendar.previous(start)

// Create our timeseries using the starting value
cfunc = TimeSeries(pindex, series.calendar, sval)

// Create a temporary series using data from our start date
s2 = series.from(start)

// Iterate through the source values and perform the cumulative function
for v in s2.values
sval = sval * (1 + v.value/100)
cfunc.addValue(sval)
next
end

The function cfunc uses 3 input parameters:

  • series is used for the return input series.
  • start is the starting date for the calculation (we use 01-01-1927 or 01-01-1972 or 01-01-2018).
  • sval is the starting value for the investment (we use $1 in our sample).

The output series utilises the calendar information of the input. In our case, the input series is a monthly series. We start the calculated cumulative timeseries from one period back with our initial investment of $1.

Smart Time Series

The script is an optional saved custom script with user defined functions. These functions can then be used in the expression of the configuration in ODSL Web-Portal.

Configuration in ODSL - smart time series

In the ODSL Web-Portal, the smart time series can be configured calling the script and configure the input and output data. The calculation can easily be tested by clicking on the Test Run button before saving the setup.

Here in this sample we setup the smart time series for the industry portfolio OTHER and the cumulative gain is calculated starting 01-01-1927 investing $1.


Smart Time Series vs. Base Time Series

Smart time series are an easy but powerful way of defining time series derivations.

The base TimeSeries is mandatory and can be either a real TimeSeries or another Smart TimeSeries. The base TimeSeries is usually used in the expression using the variable name BASE.

Data analysis and visualization

The outcome of our analysis can be visualized in the ODSL Web-Portal or in Excel downloading the information easily with the ODSL Excel-Addin and by utilizing the Excel functionalities.

Cumulative gain since 1927

Checking the progress of the cumulative gain of the investment of $1 for each of the 5 industry portfolios over the investment period starting 01-01-1927.

Cumulative gain since 2018

If we just check the output for a last 5 years investment, the graphs look like:

The final insights

Here we create some charts in Excel showing the result of the cumulative investment in various industries over 5 years, 50 years and forever.

Gain - Investing for 5 years starting 1927, 1972 or 2018

Gain - Investing for 50 years starting in 1927 or 1972

Gain - Investing forever

Our favorite holding period is forever. -- [Warran Buffett]

Conclusion

This blog shows the use of OpenDataDSL SMART Timeseries to create insights into your data.

This is just one example of how OpenDataDSL can add value to your data.

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Further Reading