How Do I Generate Sequence for Dividends for Different Years and Different Months?

[tramn]

Greetings,

I have a data set, in which companies pay dividends in different months in different years. I'd like to create a sequence of quarter dividend for 18 years.

I plan to group the dividend in different months into quarter dividend first, then create quarter dividend sequencing for different years next. Will there be any different and better way to do it? And would you kindly help me on the SAS procedures and programming please?

Thank you.

Best regards,

Tilda N.

[Astounding]

If you have a dividend date, you can get the first date of the quarter easily:

Q_begins = intnx('quarter', dividend_date, 0);

[PGStats]

You could go for something like:

proc sql;
create table want as
select 
    intnx("qtr", divDate, 0) as divQtr format=yyq.,
    sum((divAmount) as qtrDivAmount
from have
group by calculated divQtr;
quit;

where divDate is a SAS date.

[mkeintz]

@tramn 

I think you want to aggregate dividends for all companies, by quarter, correct?  If so, what are your date variables?  I.e., are they sas date values?  Or possibly year and month variables?  Could you show a sample of what your sas data set currently contains?