Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock Problem Statement

Given an array prices representing the prices of a stock where each element indicates the price at a given minute, determine the maximum profit you can achieve by buying and selling the stock once.

Example:

Input:

prices = [2, 100, 150, 120]

Output:

148

Explanation:

The maximum profit can be achieved by buying at minute 0 for Rs. 2 and selling at minute 2 for Rs. 150, resulting in a profit of 150 - 2 = 148.

Constraints:

1

Question

Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock Problem Statement

Given an array prices representing the prices of a stock where each element indicates the price at a given minute, determine the maximum profit you can achieve by buying and selling the stock once.

Example:

Input:

prices = [2, 100, 150, 120]

Output:

Explanation:

The maximum profit can be achieved by buying at minute 0 for Rs. 2 and selling at minute 2 for Rs. 150, resulting in a profit of 150 - 2 = 148.

Constraints:

1 <= T <= 10
2 <= N <= 10^4
1 <= prices[i] <= 10^9

Note: You cannot sell before buying.

If the maximum profit is negative, consider it as 0.

Accepted Answer

Find the maximum profit by buying and selling a stock once based on given prices.

Iterate through the prices array and keep track of the minimum price seen so far and the maximum profit achievable.
Calculate the profit by subtracting the current price from the minimum price and update the maximum profit if needed.
Return the maximum profit, ensuring it is not negative.
Example: prices = [2, 100, 150, 120], Buy at 2, sell at 150, profit = 150 - 2 = 148.

Accepted Answer

Why not sort and return the difference between first and last.