pandas multiindex – how to select second level when using columns?

Also using John’s data sample:

Using xs() is another way to slice a MultiIndex:

df
               0
stock1 price   1
       volume  2
stock2 price   3
       volume  4
stock3 price   5
       volume  6

df.xs('price', level=1, drop_level=False)
              0
stock1 price  1
stock2 price  3
stock3 price  5

Alternatively if you have a MultiIndex in place of columns:

df
  stock1        stock2        stock3       
   price volume  price volume  price volume
0      1      2      3      4      5      6

df.xs('price', axis=1, level=1, drop_level=False)
  stock1 stock2 stock3
   price  price  price
0      1      3      5