How can I change the x-axis index date format in matplotlib?

Question

My code below outputs the following image:

from datetime import datetime as dt
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import style
import pandas as pd
import pandas_datareader.data as web
import os

start = dt(2017, 1, 1)
end = dt.now()

df = web.get_data_yahoo('AAPL', start, end, interval = 'd')
df['30_sma'] = df['Adj Close'].rolling(window=30, 
min_periods=None).mean()

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1)
ax.plot(df.index, df['Adj Close'])
ax.plot(df.index, df['30_sma'])
plt.show()

I would like the date to show up as YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM format. I have tried creating a new column in my data frame made up of the index, but that did not change anything when I plotted it.

cs95 · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-06 21:39:59Z

1

This would work by calling df.plot and passing ax as a parameter -

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1)

df[['Adj Close', '30_sma']].plot(ax=ax)
plt.show()

answered Jan 6, 2018 at 21:39

cs95

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5 Comments

NaN Over a year ago

@COLDSPEED this works for me, but is there any way to change colors/line types of individual lines?

cs95 Over a year ago

@NaN I guess, you could pass a list to styles. Example - df[['Adj Close', '30_sma']].plot(ax=ax, style=['r*-','bo-'])

cs95 Over a year ago

@NaN Thanks for accepting! You can also vote on the answer if you liked it. Thanks.

NaN Over a year ago

@COLDSPEED No problem, could you help me with one more thing I realized so I don't have to ask a separate question? I would like to add markers where the 30_sma crosses the Adj Close (e.g. green or red circles), is this possible?

cs95 Over a year ago

@NaN Ah, my knowledge of matplotlib is very surface level... but this might help: stackoverflow.com/questions/28766692/…

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