What is the Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock pattern?

The Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock is a common coding interview pattern in Greedy Algorithms problems. It provides a structured approach to solving related algorithm challenges efficiently.

When should I use Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock?

Use the Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock pattern when you encounter problems matching its characteristics. Check the "When to Use" and "Clues" sections in the lesson for specific indicators.

Is Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock asked in FAANG interviews?

Yes, Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock is an essential pattern commonly tested in FAANG and top tech company technical interviews.

Browse Curriculum

Greedy Algorithms

Easy

Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock

Maximize profit by choosing a single day to buy and a different day in the future to sell.

10 min read

Solve on LeetCode

Problem Understanding

You are given an array prices where prices[i] is the price of a given stock on the i-th day.

You want to maximize your profit by choosing a single day to buy one stock and choosing a different day in the future to sell that stock.

Return the maximum profit. If no profit possible, return 0.

Strategy

We can iterate through the prices and keep track of:

Min Price So Far: The lowest price we've seen to buy at.
Max Profit: The best profit we could get if we sold today (Current Price - Min Price).

Initialize min_price = infinity, max_profit = 0.
For each price p:
Update min_price = min(min_price, p)
Update max_profit = max(max_profit, p - min_price)

Interactive Visualization

Step 1 / 1

Initializing...

Custom Input

Watch how we track the minimum price seen so far to calculate maximum potential profit at each day.

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