PyFolio Overview

Note

As of (at least) 2017-07-25 the pyfolio APIs have changed and create_full_tear_sheet no longer has a gross_lev as a named argument.

Consequently the sample for integration doesn’t work

Quoting from the main pyfolio page at http://quantopian.github.io/pyfolio/:

pyfolio is a Python library for performance and risk analysis of financial
portfolios developed by Quantopian Inc. It works well with the Zipline open
source backtesting library

And now it works also well with backtrader. What’s needed:

pyfolio obviously
And its dependencies (things like pandas, seaborn …)

Note

During the integration with version 0.5.1, an update to the most recent packages of the dependencies was needed, like seaborn from the previously installed 0.7.0-dev to 0.7.1, apparently due to the absence of the method swarmplot

Usage

Add the PyFolio analyzer to the cerebro mix:

cerebro.addanalyzer(bt.analyzers.PyFolio)

Run and retrieve the 1^st strategy:

strats = cerebro.run()
strat0 = strats[0]

Retrieve the analyzer using whatever name you gave to it or the default name it will be given to it: pyfolio. For example:
```
pyfolio = strats.analyzers.getbyname('pyfolio')
```

Use the analyzer method get_pf_items to retrieve the 4 components later needed for pyfolio:

returns, positions, transactions, gross_lev = pyfoliozer.get_pf_items()

!!! note

The integration was done looking at test samples available with
`pyfolio` and the same headers (or absence of) has been replicated

Work with pyfolio (this is already outside of the backtrader ecosystem)

Some usage notes not directly related to backtrader

pyfolio automatic plotting works outside of a Jupyter Notebook, but it works best inside
pyfolio data tables’ output seems to barely work outside of a Jupyter Notebook. It works inside the Notebook

The conclusion is easy if working with pyfolio is wished: work inside a Jupyter Notebook

Sample Code

The code would look like this:

...
cerebro.addanalyzer(bt.analyzers.PyFolio, _name='pyfolio')
...
results = cerebro.run()
strat = results[0]
pyfoliozer = strat.analyzers.getbyname('pyfolio')
returns, positions, transactions, gross_lev = pyfoliozer.get_pf_items()
...
...
# pyfolio showtime
import pyfolio as pf
pf.create_full_tear_sheet(
    returns,
    positions=positions,
    transactions=transactions,
    gross_lev=gross_lev,
    live_start_date='2005-05-01',  # This date is sample specific
    round_trips=True)

# At this point tables and chart will show up

Reference

Look into the Analyzers Reference for the PyFolio analyzer and which analyzers it uses internally