chart.StackedBar: create a stacked bar plot

In braverock/PerformanceAnalytics: Econometric Tools for Performance and Risk Analysis

create a stacked bar plot

Description

This creates a stacked column chart with time on the horizontal axis and values in categories. This kind of chart is commonly used for showing portfolio 'weights' through time, although the function will plot any values by category.

Usage

chart.StackedBar(
  w,
  colorset = NULL,
  space = 0.2,
  cex.axis = 0.8,
  cex.legend = 0.8,
  cex.lab = 1,
  cex.labels = 0.8,
  cex.main = 1,
  xaxis = TRUE,
  legend.loc = "under",
  element.color = "darkgray",
  unstacked = TRUE,
  xlab = "Date",
  ylab = "Value",
  ylim = NULL,
  date.format = "%b %y",
  major.ticks = "auto",
  minor.ticks = TRUE,
  las = 0,
  xaxis.labels = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

w	a matrix, data frame or zoo object of values to be plotted. Rownames should contain dates or period labels; column names should indicate categories. See examples for detail.
colorset	color palette to use, set by default to rational choices
space	the amount of space (as a fraction of the average bar width) left before each bar, as in barplot. Default is 0.2.
cex.axis	The magnification to be used for sizing the axis text relative to the current setting of 'cex', similar to plot.
cex.legend	The magnification to be used for sizing the legend relative to the current setting of 'cex', similar to plot.
cex.lab	The magnification to be used for x- and y-axis labels relative to the current setting of 'cex'.
cex.labels	The magnification to be used for event line labels relative to the current setting of 'cex'.
cex.main	The magnification to be used for the chart title relative to the current setting of 'cex'.
xaxis	If true, draws the x axis
legend.loc	places a legend into a location on the chart similar to chart.TimeSeries. The default, "under," is the only location currently implemented for this chart. Use 'NULL' to remove the legend.
element.color	provides the color for drawing less-important chart elements, such as the box lines, axis lines, etc.
unstacked	logical. If set to 'TRUE' and only one row of data is submitted in 'w', then the chart creates a normal column chart. If more than one row is submitted, then this is ignored. See examples below.
xlab	the x-axis label, which defaults to 'NULL'.
ylab	Set the y-axis label, same as in plot
ylim	set the y-axis limit, same as in plot
date.format	Re-format the dates for the xaxis; the default is "%m/%y"
major.ticks	Should major tickmarks be drawn and labeled, default 'auto'
minor.ticks	Should minor tickmarks be drawn, default TRUE
las	sets the orientation of the axis labels, as described in par. Defaults to '3'.
xaxis.labels	Allows for non-date labeling of date axes, default is NULL
...	arguments to be passed to barplot.

Details

This function is a wrapper for barplot but adds three additional capabilities. First, it calculates and sets a bottom margin for long column names that are rotated vertically. That doesn't always result in the prettiest chart, but it does ensure readable labels.

Second, it places a legend "under" the graph rather than within the bounds of the chart (which would obscure the data). The legend is created from the column names. The default is to create the legend when there's more than one row of data being presented. If there is one row of data, the chart may be "unstacked" and the legend removed.

Third, it plots or stacks negative values from an origin of zero, similar to the behavior of barchart from the 'lattice' package.

Note

The "w" attribute is so named because this is a popular way to show portfolio weights through time. That being said, this function is not limited to portfolio weight values and does not provide any normalization so that the chart can be used more generally with different data.

The principal drawback of stacked column charts is that it is very difficult for the reader to judge size of 2nd, 3rd, etc., data series because they do not have common baseline. Another is that with a large number of series, the colors may be difficult to discern. As alternatives, Cleveland advocates the use of trellis like displays, and Tufte advocates the use of small multiple charts.

Author(s)

Peter Carl

References

Cleveland, W.S. (1994), The Elements of Graphing Data, Summit, NJ: Hobart Press.

Tufte, Edward R. (2001) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition. The Graphics Press, Cheshire, Connecticut. See http://www.edwardtufte.com for this and other references.

See Also

barplot, par

Examples

data(weights)
head(weights)

# With the legend "under" the chart
chart.StackedBar(weights, date.format="%Y", cex.legend = 0.7, colorset=rainbow12equal)

# Without the legend
chart.StackedBar(weights, colorset=rainbow12equal, legend.loc=NULL)

# for one row of data, use 'unstacked' for a better chart
chart.StackedBar(weights[1,,drop=FALSE], unstacked=TRUE, las=3)

braverock/PerformanceAnalytics documentation built on Feb. 16, 2024, 5:37 a.m.