Taking Log of negative data

[felonx]

Hello all,

I have a mathematical problem regarding my data that I would like to solve with EViews.

My series consists of positive and negative returns and I would like to normalize them. I use the returns as dependents variable in a regression.

So could you tell me how the procedure would be in EViews to accomplish that. Obviously I can't take the log straight from a series with negative values. I read that I have to add a constant to the series so that it gets positive but how exactly does it work?

Thank you very much. This question might seem dumb to some of you but I tried to google it and haven't found a good description so far.

Best,
Felix

[felonx]

I use EViews 8.