gold prices from measuring worth in r

measuring worth data in r.r

#R example of using prices from http://www.measuringworth.com
#if you use and like their data, I strongly encourage donating to the cause http://www.measuringworth.com/contribute.php

require(latticeExtra)
require(xts)

#ugly way to specify url for prices you would like
#shiny would provide a very nice interface once I get motivated
#this particular example will download prices from 1718 to 2013 for New York and London market
#redundant since London market dataset switched to New York in 1950
url = paste("http://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/gold/export.php?",
          "year_source=1791&",          #1257, 1786, 1791, 1687, or 1718
          "year_result=",format(Sys.Date(),"%Y"),"&",  #any year to current except for 1945 for British official
          #set on for the following data sources
          #time range set above must fall within the years specified
          #can specify multiple sources  
          "British=&",                  #British official price (1257-1945) 
          "us=&",                       #U.S. official price (1786-Present) 
          "newyork=on&",                  #New York market price (1791-Present) 
          "goldsilver=&",               #Gold/silver price ratio (1687-Present) 
          "london=on",                  #London market price (1718-Present) switches to New York 1950
          sep="")


goldprices <- apply(read.csv(url,stringsAsFactors=FALSE),MARGIN=2,FUN=as.numeric)
#get in xts format for easier time-series handling
goldprices.xts <- na.omit(xts(goldprices[,2:ncol(goldprices)],
                      order.by = as.Date(paste(goldprices[,1],"-12-31",sep="")))) #set each year to end of year 12/31/Year

xyplot(goldprices.xts,
       scales=list(x=list(tck=c(1,0)),y=list(log=10,rot=0)),
       yscale.components = yscale.components.log10ticks,
       xlab=NULL,
       main="Gold Prices from MeasuringWorth (http://measuringworth.com)")