Python Bootcamp

This is a collection of the material that I used for the Python for financial research bootcamp that I taught to honours and PhD students at the University of Melbourne in March 2017.


The bootcamp is divided into four blocks of three hours each:

1. Introduction to Python programming

We will discuss what is Python and you will learn the basic structure of the language. You will also learn your way around the programming environment, including the two main editors for scientific Python, Spyder and Jupyter.

2. Introduction to data analysis using pandas, matplotlib

You will learn how to import, export and transform data using pandas, the panel data package for Python. You will also learn how to explore the data by generating summary statistics and plotting graphs using matplotlib.

3. More data analysis using pandas and statsmodels

You will learn more advanced features of Python and pandas, including dealing with timestamps and estimating measures from daily and intraday data. You will also learn how to estimate OLS and panel regressions using statsmodels.

4. Other topics

In this block, you will be introduced briefly to other python packages that can be helpful for research. The list of topics is not yet finalized, but will likely include text analysis, web scraping, network analysis and symbolic algebra.


I recommend the Anaconda distribution, which is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. We're using the Python 2.7 version for the bootcamp.



Note: this code is for illustrative purpose, and does not necessarily show the correct or best way to do something, the main goal is to illustrate the Python language, its libraries and some common use cases in research.

Block 1:

Block 2:

Block 3:

Block 4: