Diversification Variable

[Said Kaawach]

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to generate a proper diversification variable from my data. What I want this variable to do is to count exactly the number of investments that the investor has in the portfolio and when an investment reaches the maturity, it will automatically will substract these investments that have reached maturity. My data looks like the following

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input long(Investor Investment) float BiddingTime byte Maturity float diversification
3    1  13oct2010 08:51:10  3 .
3    3 14oct2010 03:05:38  3 1
3   26  29oct2010 04:00:54  3 2
3   43  11nov2010 16:29:28  3 3
3   50  11nov2010 16:29:28  3 4
3  209 01dec2010 14:56:25  6 4
3  258  09dec2010 16:25:02  3 5
3  247 09dec2010 16:29:2412 5
3  413 22dec2010 04:14:40  3 5
3  477  23dec2010 11:15:53  3 6
3 1866 13feb2011 05:03:46 12 6
3 1910 13feb2011 05:03:46  6 7
3 5103  15may2011 07:00:57 12 7
3 6397 07jun2011 07:02:51  3 7
end
format %tc BiddingTime

The number diversification is the cumulative number of successful investments that goes into the investors portfolio. Maturity is the number of months until the investment reaches maturity where for example 3 = 3 months. Investor is the Investor ID and Investment is the Investment ID. Also, I edited BiddingTime by myself because when I use dataex it gives me numbers like these 1.602579e+12.
I would be thankful if someone can help.

Thank you for your time.

[Nick Cox]

Hacking at the results of dataex usually -- and in this case -- undermines its purpose. The point of the code you hacked at is that the format statement gives any user scope for a display using that format -- but only after the command is run.

Conversely, the code you give won't run without error.

Regardless of that holding a date-time in a float is a bad idea and advised against (several times) in

help datetime 

It may be that the loss of precision is immaterial for your purposes but my advice would be to re-run data input and insist that bidding time be stored as a double.

I don't really understand the question you asked, but others who might understand would be better served by dataex code that will run and re-running data input is advisable any way.