Max Stock Profit From Dates | Dataford Interview Questions

For an analytics exercise supporting Guardant Health financial planning, you receive daily stock prices in chronological order. The value at index i is the price on day i.

Implement a function that returns the largest possible profit from completing exactly one transaction: buy on one day and sell on a later day. If no profitable transaction is possible, return 0.

Formal Specification

Input: prices, a list of integers where prices[i] is the stock price on day i.
Output: An integer representing the maximum profit, calculated as sell_price - buy_price.
The buy day must occur strictly before the sell day.
You may not reuse a day for both actions.

Constraints

0 <= len(prices) <= 10^5
0 <= prices[i] <= 10^9
The buy day must be earlier than the sell day
Return 0 if no profitable transaction exists

Function Signature

def max_stock_profit(prices):

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