Pandas DataFrame - 'cannot astype a datetimelike from [datetime64[ns]] to [float64]' when using ols/linear regression

Question

I have a DataFrame as follows:

   Ticker        Date  Close
0    ADBE  2016-02-16  78.88
1    ADBE  2016-02-17  81.85
2    ADBE  2016-02-18  80.53
3    ADBE  2016-02-19  80.87
4    ADBE  2016-02-22  83.80
5    ADBE  2016-02-23  83.07

...and so on. The Date column is the issue. I'm trying to get the linear regression of the Date column with the Close column:

ols1 = pd.ols(y=ADBE['Close'], x=ADBE['Date'], intercept=True)

I get the following error:

TypeError: cannot astype a datetimelike from [datetime64[ns]] to [float64]

I've tried multiple ways of getting rid of this error, for examples:

dates_input = ADBE['Date'].values.astype('datetime64[D]')

dates_input = ADBE['Date'].values.astype('float')

The second dates_input attempt returns the type as pandas.core.series.Series but I still get an error message.

Does anyone know how to get the Date column to work and get rid of this TypeError?

Answer 1

You need:

ADBE['Date'] = ADBE['Date'].values.astype(float)

and then:

ols1 = pd.ols(y=ADBE['Close'], x=ADBE['Date'], intercept=True)