Plotting a time series

I am trying to plot a time series in which date appears on the x-axis and the variable of interest appears on y-axis. My data contains dates in the format of 1973-01, as in YYYY-MM. I am trying to import to import the data and plot but it keeps throwing the following error message

>> loantodepositratio
Warning: Column headers from the file were modified to make them valid MATLAB identifiers before creating variable names for
the table. The original column headers are saved in the VariableDescriptions property.
Set 'PreserveVariableNames' to true to use the original column headers as table variable names. 
Error using plot

Invalid data argument.

Error in loantodepositratio (line 2)
plot(info{:,1},info{:,4});

Will apprciate any help. I attach the data file and here is the code I am trying to use for the plot:

info = readtable('data3.xls');
plot(info{:,1},info{:,4});
recessionplot;
print -dpdf loantodepositratio

Answer 1

[VINAYAK LUHA]

Hi VS,

Typecast the info.Date to MATLAB datetime format before plotting like below.

info = readtable('data3.xls',VariableNamingRule='preserve');
plot(datetime(info.Date,"Format",'yyy-mm'),info.("Loans to Deposit Ratio")) 

Hope this helps,

Answer 2

[Christian Niklaus]

You can do it by changing your first two lines into:

info = readtable('data3.xls','VariableNamingRule','preserve');
info.Date = datetime(info.Date,'InputFormat','yyyy-MM');
plot(info{:,1},info{:,4});

Short description:

With the additional argument 'VariableNamingRule','preserve' in the function readtable you define that the first row describes the column names. So, you will get no warning any more.

Your column "Date" will be imported per default as text. Therefore, your have to convert it to a datetime column. You can do this with the function datetime together with the input format (here: 'yyyy-MM' for year and month). Afterwards, you can plot the imported data as you have done it with plot(info{:,1},info{:,4});

Answer 3

[Seth Furman]

fname = "data3.xls";
opts = detectImportOptions(fname,TextType="string",VariableNamingRule="preserve");
opts = setvaropts(opts,"Date",Type="datetime",InputFormat="uuuu-MM");
tt = readtimetable(fname,opts)

tt = 607×3 timetable
     Date        Loans        Deposits     Loans to Deposit Ratio
    _______    __________    __________    ______________________

    1973-01    5.6664e+05    5.9689e+05           0.94933        
    1973-02    5.7152e+05    5.9896e+05            0.9542        
    1973-03    5.8174e+05    6.0299e+05           0.96476        
    1973-04    5.8885e+05     6.124e+05           0.96155        
    1973-05    5.9511e+05    6.1435e+05           0.96868        
    1973-06    6.0397e+05    6.2306e+05           0.96936        
    1973-07    6.1121e+05    6.3079e+05           0.96895        
    1973-08    6.1738e+05    6.2993e+05           0.98007        
    1973-09    6.2312e+05    6.3863e+05           0.97572        
    1973-10    6.2697e+05    6.4764e+05           0.96809        
    1973-11    6.3237e+05     6.492e+05           0.97407        
    1973-12      6.43e+05    6.6382e+05           0.96863        
    1974-01    6.4435e+05    6.6474e+05           0.96932        
    1974-02    6.4524e+05    6.6362e+05           0.97231        
    1974-03      6.56e+05    6.6776e+05           0.98239        
    1974-04    6.6941e+05    6.8458e+05           0.97784        

stackedplot(tt)