How to calculate returns from a vector of prices?

Question

I have to calculate the return of a vector that gives a historical price series of a stock. The vector is of a form:

a <- c(10.25, 11.26, 14, 13.56) 
         


        

Answer 1

A more detailed example with multiple time series:

############ Vector  ############

vPrice <- (10.25, 11.26, 14, 13.56) 
n = length(vPrice)

#Log returns

log_ret <- diff(log(vPrice)) # or = log(vPrice[-1]/vPrice[-n]) because "..[-i]" removes the i'th item of the vector
log_ret

#Simple returns

simple_ret <- diff(vPrice)/vPrice[1:(n-1)] # or = diff(vPrice)/vPrice[-n]
simple_ret


############ Multiple Time series ############

head(EuStockMarkets)

mPrice <-  EuStockMarkets
n = dim(mPrice)[1] #Nb rows

log_ret <- diff(log(mPrice))
head(log_ret)

simple_ret <- diff(mPrice)/mPrice[1:(n-1),]
head(simple_ret)


#Total Returns

total_log_ret <- colSums(log_ret,2) #just a sum for log-returns
total_log_ret
total_Simple_ret <- apply(1+simple_ret, 2, prod)-1 # product of simple returns
total_Simple_ret

##################

#From simple to log returns 
all.equal(log(1+total_Simple_ret),total_log_ret) #should be true

#From Log to simple returns 
all.equal( total_Simple_ret,exp(total_log_ret)-1) #should be true