By coloring the area between the axis and the lines, the area chart throws more emphasis not just on the peaks and troughs but also the duration of the highs and lows. The longer the duration of the highs, the larger is the area under the line.

AreaChart.py

# Import needed libs
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

# Prepare Data
df = pd.read_csv("https://github.com/selva86/datasets/raw/master/economics.csv", parse_dates=['date']).head(100)
x = np.arange(df.shape[0])
y_returns = (df.psavert.diff().fillna(0)/df.psavert.shift(1)).fillna(0) * 100

# Plot
plt.figure(figsize=(16,10), dpi= 80)
plt.fill_between(x[1:], y_returns[1:], 0, where=y_returns[1:] >= 0, facecolor='green', interpolate=True, alpha=0.7)
plt.fill_between(x[1:], y_returns[1:], 0, where=y_returns[1:] <= 0, facecolor='red', interpolate=True, alpha=0.7)

# Annotate
plt.annotate('Peak \n1975', xy=(94.0, 21.0), xytext=(88.0, 28),
             bbox=dict(boxstyle='square', fc='firebrick'),
             arrowprops=dict(facecolor='steelblue', shrink=0.05), fontsize=15, color='white')


# Decorations
xtickvals = [str(m)[:3].upper()+"-"+str(y) for y,m in zip(df.date.dt.year, df.date.dt.month_name())]
plt.gca().set_xticks(x[::6])
plt.gca().set_xticklabels(xtickvals[::6], rotation=90, fontdict={'horizontalalignment': 'center', 'verticalalignment': 'center_baseline'})
plt.ylim(-35,35)
plt.xlim(1,100)
plt.title("Month Economics Return %", fontsize=22)
plt.ylabel('Monthly returns %')
plt.grid(alpha=0.5)
plt.show()