dXtime incorporates a wide range of time series operations, allowing new series to be generated with ease. You may find that you want to:
- transform the frequency of a series, so that it matches that of other series with which you are working;
- work with percentage changes (or growth rates) rather than with the original series data;
- smooth the series data, for example, by calculating a moving average;
- convert a series into an index, with a base value of 100 (or 1) in a time period you specify;
- remove seasonal factors from a series;
- work with the logarithm of the series observations;
- lag a series by one or more time periods;
- add series together, observation by observation;
- scale a series, by multiplying it by a constant value.
dXtime allows you to perform all these manipulations, and many more.
Whenever dXtime generates a new series, it creates a series formula. This formula defines the way in which the new time series depends on other time series, just as a spreadsheet formula generates cell values based on the values of other cells. The series formula allows dXtime to re-generate the data observations for the new series whenever the "parent" series are updated.
Series formulas may be edited, and can also be created from scratch. dXtime has more than 70 time series functions that may be entered into series formulas to perform a range of useful time series tasks.
