recessionplot

Overlay recession bands on a time series plot

Syntax

recessionplot

recessionplot(Name,Value)

hBands = recessionplot(___)

Description

recessionplot overlays shaded recession bands on a time series plot.

recessionplot(Name,Value) uses additional options specified by one or more Name,Value pairs.

hBands = recessionplot(___) returns a vector of handles to the recession bands, using any of the previous input arguments.

Examples

Overlay Recession Bands

Overlay recession bands on a plot of multiple time series.

Load data on credit defaults, and extract the predictor variables in the first four columns.

load Data_CreditDefaults
X0 = Data(:,1:4);
T0 = size(X0,1);

Convert the dates to serial date numbers, as required by recessionplot.

dates = datenum([dates,ones(T0,2)]);

Create a time series plot of the four credit default predictors.

figure;
plot(dates,X0,'LineWidth',2);
ax = gca;
ax.XTick = dates(1:2:end);
datetick('x','yyyy','keepticks')
xlabel('Year');
ylabel('Level');
axis tight;

Overlay recession bands corresponding to U.S. recessions reported by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

recessionplot;

The plots shows that two recessions occurred within the range of the time series.

Change Color and Transparency of Recession Bands

Overlay recession bands on a plot of multiple time series. Return the handles of the recession bands so you can change their color and transparency.

Load data on credit defaults, and extract the predictor variables in the first four columns.

load Data_CreditDefaults
X0 = Data(:,1:4);
T0 = size(X0,1);

Convert dates to serial date numbers, and then plot the four time series.

dates = datenum([dates,ones(T0,2)]);

figure;
plot(dates,X0,'LineWidth',2);
ax = gca;
ax.XTick = dates(1:2:end);
datetick('x','yyyy','keepticks')
xlabel('Year');
ylabel('Level');
axis tight;

Overlay recession bands, returning the handles to the bands. Change the band color to red and increase the transparency.

hBands = recessionplot;
set(hBands,'FaceColor','r','FaceAlpha',0.4)

Input Arguments

Name-Value Pair Arguments

Specify optional comma-separated pairs of Name,Value arguments. Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name must appear inside quotes. You can specify several name and value pair arguments in any order as Name1,Value1,...,NameN,ValueN.

Example: 'axes',h1 overlays recession bands on the axes identified by the handle h1

'axes' — Handle to axes

gca (default) | handle

Handle to axes displaying a time series plot, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'axes' and an axes handle. The time series plot must have serial date numbers on the horizontal axis

Example: 'axes',h1

'recessions' — Recession data

Data_Recessions.mat (default) | matrix

Recession data indicating the beginning and end of historical recessions, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'recessions' and a numRecessions-by-2 matrix of serial date numbers. The first column indicates the beginning of the recession, and the second column indicates the end of the recession. The default recession data is the U.S. recession data in Data_Recessions.mat, reported by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Output Arguments

hBands — Handles

vector

Handles to the recession bands, returned as a vector of handles.

Tips

• recessionplot requires that you express dates on the horizontal axis of a time series plot as serial date numbers. To convert other date information to this format before plotting, use datenum.

• Use the output handles to change the color and transparency of the recession bands by setting their FaceColor and FaceAlpha properties. This might be necessary to achieve satisfactory displays when working with certain monitors and projectors.