from matplotlib import mlab from pylab import figure, show a = mlab.csv2rec('../data/msft.csv') a.sort() print a.dtype fig = figure() ax = fig.add_subplot(111) ax.plot(a.date, a.adj_close, '-') fig.autofmt_xdate() # if you have xlwt installed, you can output excel import mpl_toolkits.exceltools as exceltools exceltools.rec2excel(a, 'test.xls') show()