python pandas: how to calculate derivative/gradient

Question

Given that I have the following two vectors:

In [99]: time_index
Out[99]: 
[1484942413,
 1484942712,
 1484943012,
 1484943312,
 1484943612,
 1484943912,
 1484944         


        

Answer 1

Or if you'd like to calculate the rate of change you can just use df.pct_change()

As a parameter you can enter df.pct_change(n), where n is the lookback period assuming you have a datetime indexed dataframe.