[R] reorganizing a data frame

[Jeff Miller]

Hi, 

I have what I think is an easy question.

I have a data frame, called stockdata, of stock prices that looks like this:


         date       ticker       close 
 1 01/02/1998    GE       24.667
 2 01/05/1998    GE       25.104
 3 01/06/1998    GE       24.771
 4 01/07/1998    GE       24.979
 5 01/08/1998    GE       24.750
 6 01/02/1998    HIT       71.125
 7 01/05/1998    HIT       72.313
 8 01/06/1998    HIT       72.563
 9 01/02/1998    INTC     36.313
10 01/05/1998   INTC     37.250
11 01/06/1998   INTC     36.563
12 01/07/1998   INTC     36.375
13 01/08/1998   INTC     37.156

I would like to turn this data frame into a matrix, closedata, that looks like 
this 
                        GE         HIT          INTC 
01/02/1998     24.667     71.125     36.313
01/05/1998     25.104     72.313     37.250
01/06/1998     24.771     72.563     36.563
01/07/1998     24.979     NA          36.375
01/08/1998     24.750     NA          37.156

 
What is the best way to do this?

I can see how to do it using a loop, but that is a problem when 
I have lots of stocks on lots of dates.


Thanks much,

    Jeff Miller 



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