Here we will  try to replicate the pretty periodic table of investment returns found on the ishares website. For those countries where MSCI index data was not available, a general market index was used instead. Returns are computed from log differences in adjusted prices across 18 developed countries.

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setwd("C:/University of Warwick/R experiments/Spatial")

library(quantmod)
library(timeSeries)
library(RColorBrewer)

dev.names<-c('Austria','Australia','Italy','Switzerland','Japan','Singapore','Canada','UK','Spain','Belgium','Hong Kong','France','Germany','USA','Netherlands','Sweden','Ireland','New Zealand')
dev.abr<-c('AUS','AUST','ITAL','CHF','JPY','SGP','CAN','UK','SPA','BEL','HK','FRA','GER','USA','NET','SWD','IRL','NZL')
dev.ticker<-c('EWO','EWA','EWI','EWL','EWJ','EWS','EWC','EWU','EWP','EWK','EWH','EWQ','EWG','VTI','EWN','EWS','^ISEQ','^NZGI')
dev.col<-as.matrix(topo.colors(length(dev.names),alpha=0.8))
rownames(dev.col)<-dev.abr
time.frame<-as.character(2002:2011)
num<-length(dev.names)
f<-as.Date('2002-01-01')
e<-as.Date('2011-12-31')
assets<-NULL
dev.ret.matrix<-NULL

for(i in 1:num){
  print(paste("Downloading data for :", dev.names[i]))
  assets$name[[i]]<-dev.names[[i]]
  assets$ticker[[i]]<-dev.ticker[[i]]
  getSymbols(dev.ticker[i],from=f,to=e)
  ifelse(strsplit(dev.ticker[i],'')[[1]][1]=='^',assets$prices[[i]]<-get(substr(dev.ticker[i],start=2,stop=5))[,4],assets$prices[[i]]<-get(dev.ticker[i])[,4])
  assets$annRet[[i]]<-as.timeSeries(annualReturn(assets$prices[[i]],type='log')*100)
  dev.ret.matrix<-cbind(dev.ret.matrix,assets$annRet[[i]])
}

dev.ret.matrix<-t(dev.ret.matrix)
rownames(dev.ret.matrix)<-dev.abr
colnames(dev.ret.matrix)<-time.frame

windows(width=14,height=14)
par(mai=c(0,0.2,0,0))
layout(matrix(c(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2),nrow=10,ncol=1))
plot.new()
plot.window(xlim=c(-1,109),ylim=c(0,194))

for(i in 1:10){
  for(j in 1:19){
    if(j==19)
      {
       rect((i-1)*11,(j-1)*10,11*i,(j*10)-2,density=NA,col='darkblue',lty=1,border='white')
       text((11*i)-5.5,(19*10)-6,time.frame[i],cex=0.95,col="white",font=2)
    }

    else if(j<19)
    {
       temp<-as.matrix(dev.ret.matrix[order(dev.ret.matrix[,i]),i][j],1)
       col.code<-dev.col[rownames(temp),]
       rect((i-1)*11,(j-1)*10+1,11*i,(j*10)+4,density=NA,col=col.code,lwd=1.0,border='white')
       text((i-1)*11+5,(j-1)*10+8,rownames(temp),col='black',cex=0.8,font=2)
       text((i-1)*11+6,(j-1)*10+4,paste(round(temp,2),'%'),col='black',cex=0.8,font=2)
    }
}
}

mtext(side=2,'Ranked in order of performance',cex=0.70,col='black',font=2)
text(x=50,y=195,'Periodic Table Of Investment Returns',col='black',font=2)

arrows(-3,100,-3,170,length=0.07,col='black',lwd=2)
arrows(-3,100,-3,11,length=0.07,col='black',lwd=2)
text(x=-2.8,y=175,'Max',col='black',font=2,cex=1)
text(x=-3.0,y=6,'Min',col='black',font=2,cex=1)

plot.new()
par(mai=c(0,0.2,0,0.2))
legend("top",fill=dev.col,legend=dev.names,ncol=6,bty='n',x.intersp=0.3,title.adj=0.95,title='Colour Codes',border='white')
abline(h=0.75)

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For a better quality click on the pdf version here : HighQuality