Maximize Stock Profit
Instructions
Write an efficient function that takes an array of stock prices and returns the best profit that could be made from one purchase and one sale of one share of stock.
Examples
Here are a few examples to illustrate how the maxProfit function works:
Example 1
Input: stockPrices = [10, 7, 5, 8, 11, 9]
Output: 6 (buy at 5, sell at 11)
Example 2
Input: stockPrices = [7, 1, 5, 3, 6, 4]
Output: 5 (buy at 1, sell at 6)
Example 3
Input: stockPrices = [7, 6, 4, 3, 1]
Output: 0 (no profit possible)
Solution
The example solution provided demonstrates a function called maxProfit that returns the maximum profit from one purchase and one sale of one share of stock. The function iterates through the array, keeping track of the minimum price seen so far and the maximum profit that can be achieved.
Maximize Stock Profit
const maxProfit = (stockPrices) => {
if (stockPrices.length < 2) {
throw new Error('At least two prices are required to calculate profit.');
}
let minPrice = stockPrices[0];
let maxProfit = 0;
for (let i = 1; i < stockPrices.length; i++) {
const currentPrice = stockPrices[i];
const potentialProfit = currentPrice - minPrice;
maxProfit = Math.max(maxProfit, potentialProfit);
minPrice = Math.min(minPrice, currentPrice);
}
return maxProfit;
}