Classifiers are computations that represent grouping keys. They can be
used in conjuction with normalization functions like ``zscore`` or
``demean`` to perform normalizations over subsets of a dataset.
Notable changes:
- Added ``demean()`` and ``zscore()`` methods to ``Factor``.
- Added a classifier versions of ``Latest`` and ``CustomTermMixin``.
The .latest attribute of int64 dataset columns no produces a
classifier by default.
- Added ``Everything``, a classifier that maps all data to the same
value.
- Added ``zipline.lib.normalize``, which implements a naive, pure-Python
grouped normalize function. This will likely be moved to Cython in a
subsequent PR.
EarningsCalendar loader.
- Moves most of AdjustedArray back into Python. The window iterator is
the only part that's performance-intensive.
- Adds a bootleg templating system for creating specialized versions of
AdjustedArrayWindow for each concrete type we care about.
- Adds support for differently dtyped terms in pipeline. This allows us
to use datetime64s which are needed in the EarningsCalendar.
- Adds EarningsCalendar dataset for the next and previous earnings
announcements in pipeline.
- Adds in memory loader for EarningsCalendar.
- Adds blaze loader for EarningsCalendar.
- Fixes an error where Modeling API data known as of the close of `day
N` would be shown to algorithms during `before_trading_start` as of
the close of the same day. Algorithms should now only receive data
during `before_trading_start/handle_data` that was known as of the
simulation time at which the function would be called.
- All Term instances now have a `mask` attribute that must be a `Filter`
or an instance of `AssetExists()`. `mask` can be used to specify that
a Factor should be computed in a manner that ignores the values that
were not `True` in the mask.
- Changed the interface for `FFCLoader.load_adjusted_array` and
`Term._compute` from `(columns, mask)`, with mask as a DataFrame, to
`(columns, dates, assets, mask)`, where mask is a numpy array. This
is primarily to avoid having to reconstruct extra DataFrames when
using masks produced by non `AssetExists` filters.
- Adds `BoundColumn.latest`, which gives the most-recently-known value
of a column.
- Add an `ascending=True` keyword to `rank()`.
- Add `top(N)` and `bottom(N)` methods to Factor. These return Filters
that pass the top and bottom N elements each day.
- Add a slightly faster path for rank(method='ordinal'). I had
originally thought the fast path was 2-3x faster because I had my
benchmark data axes flipped. The actual speedup is only 5-10%, which
means it probably wasn't worth the effort to Cythonize...but we have a
slightly faster version now so we might as well use it.
- Refactor test_filter and test_factor to make it easier to implement
and test transformations on factors. These tests now subclass
BaseFFCTestCase, which provides facilities for passing a dict of terms
and an "initial_workspace", the values for which are used by
SimpleFFCEngine rather than needing to manually manage the inputs and
outputs of each term.
This patch lays the groundwork for a compute engine designed to
facilitate construction of factor-based universe screening and portfolio
allocation. It contains:
A new module, `zipline.modelling`, containing entities that can be used
to express computations as dependency graphs. Each node in such a graph
is an instance of the base `Term` class, defined in
`zipline.modelling.term`. Dependency graphs are executed by instances
of `FFCEngine`, defined in `zipline.modelling.engine`.
A new module, `zipline.data.ffc`, containing loaders and dataset
definitions for inputs to the modelling API.
New `TradingAlgorithm` api methods: `add_factor`, and `add_filter`.
These methods can only be called from `initialize`, and are used to
inform the algorithm that each day it should compute the given terms.
Computed factor results are made available through a new attribute of
the `data` object in `before_trading_start` and `handle_data`. Computed
filter results control which assets are available in the factor matrix
on each day.
Scott Sanderson