In: Math
One way of making a series stationary is?
The two ways to make a non-stationary time series stationary are:
Differencing
Transforming
Let us look at some details for each of them:
Differencing:
In order to make your series stationary, you take a difference between the data points. So let us say, your original time series was:
X1, X2, X3,...........Xn
Your series with the difference of degree 1 become:
(X2 - X1, X3 - X2, X4 - X3,.......Xn - X(n-1)
Once, you take the difference, plot the series and see if there is any improvement in the ACF curve. If not, you can try a second or even a third order differencing. Remember, the more you difference, the more complicated your analysis is becoming.
Transformation
If you cannot make a time series stationary, you can try out
transforming the variables. Log transform is probably the most
commonly used transformation if you are seeing a diverging time
series.
However, it is normally suggested that you use transformation only
in case differencing is not working.