Lagged Return Autocorrelation - Quant Researcher Interview Question

Problem Description

Analyzing the serial correlation of asset returns is fundamental for identifying market trends, mean reversion signals, and testing market efficiency. When returns exhibit significant autocorrelation, past performance may provide predictive power for future price movements, potentially violating the weak form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Task Write a function solution(prices) that calculates the lag-1 autocorrelation of simple returns for a given series of asset prices. The function must