Emerging Currencies with rCharts + FRED

I liked this chart a lot.

#Dailychart: Argentina's plunging peso is not alone: http://t.co/CWnaNLcm4T pic.twitter.com/4Nr6EgRGx9

— The Economist (@ECONdailycharts) January 27, 2014

I thought I would show how we can semi-replicate it in R with rCharts.  Here it is with the currencies that are on FRED with dimplejs.

… and here with nvd3.

Code to replicate from Github Gist:

	require(quantmod)
	require(xtsExtra)
	require(reshape2)
	library(rCharts)
	#turn off rstudio viewer which is default now
	options(viewer=NULL)
	currencies <- c(
	"DEXBZUS", #Brazil
	"DEXINUS", #India
	"DEXSFUS", #South Africa
	"DEXMXUS" #Mexico
	)
	getSymbols(currencies, src="FRED")
	currencies.xts <- na.omit(do.call(merge,lapply(currencies,get)))
	#get inverse for emerging currency/US$
	currencies.xts <- 1/currencies.xts
	#do check for reasonableness
	xtsExtra::plot.xts(currencies.xts["2007::",])
	#get pct change from 2013
	currencies.pct <-
	currencies.xts["2013::",]/
	matrix(
	rep(
	as.vector(head(currencies.xts["2013",],1)), #first day of the year
	NROW(currencies.xts["2013::",]) #repeat for each row
	),
	ncol=length(currencies),
	byrow=T
	) - 1
	#another reasonableness check
	xtsExtra::plot.xts(currencies.pct)
	xtsExtra::plot.xts(currencies.pct,screens=1)
	currencies.df <- data.frame(
	format(index(currencies.pct),"%Y-%m-%d"),
	currencies.pct,
	stringsAsFactors = FALSE
	)
	colnames(currencies.df) <- c("Date","Brazil","India","South Africa","Mexico")
	currencies.df <- melt(currencies.df, id.vars=1)
	colnames(currencies.df) <- c("Date","Country","ExchangeRate")
	#dimple plot
	d1 <- dPlot(
	ExchangeRate ~ Date,
	groups = "Country",
	data = currencies.df,
	type = "line"
	)
	d1$xAxis(
	type = "addTimeAxis",
	inputFormat = "%Y-%m-%d",
	outputFormat = "%b %Y"
	)
	d1$yAxis(
	outputFormat = "0.2%"
	)
	d1
	#nvd3 plot
	#convert date
	currencies.df$Date = as.Date(currencies.df$Date)
	n1 <- nPlot(
	ExchangeRate ~ Date,
	group = "Country",
	data = currencies.df,
	type = "lineWithFocusChart"
	)
	n1$xAxis(
	tickFormat =
	"#! function(d) {
	return d3.time.format('%b %Y')(new Date(d * 86400000));
	} !#"
	)
	n1$yAxis(tickFormat = "#!d3.format('0.2%')!#")
	n1

view raw code.R hosted with ❤ by GitHub