python - I want to multiply two columns in a pandas DataFrame and add the result into a new column

Question

I'm trying to multiply two existing columns in a pandas Dataframe (orders_df) - Prices (stock close price) and Amount (stock quantities) and add the calculation to a new column called 'Value'. For some reason when I run this code, all the rows under the 'Value' column are positive numbers, while some of the rows should be negative. Under the Action column in the DataFrame there are seven rows with the 'Sell' string and seven with the 'Buy' string.

for i in orders_df.Action:
 if i  == 'Sell':
  orders_df['Value'] = orders_df.Prices*orders_df.Amount
 elif i == 'Buy':
  orders_df['Value'] = -orders_df.Prices*orders_df.Amount)

Please let me know what i'm doing wrong !

Answer 1

I think an elegant solution is to use the where method (also see the API docs):

In [37]: values = df.Prices * df.Amount

In [38]: df['Values'] = values.where(df.Action == 'Sell', other=-values)

In [39]: df
Out[39]: 
   Prices  Amount Action  Values
0       3      57   Sell     171
1      89      42   Sell    3738
2      45      70    Buy   -3150
3       6      43   Sell     258
4      60      47   Sell    2820
5      19      16    Buy    -304
6      56      89   Sell    4984
7       3      28    Buy     -84
8      56      69   Sell    3864
9      90      49    Buy   -4410

Further more this should be the fastest solution.