The standard practice in testing potential floor traders was to require that they could quickly calculate positions and potential risks for futures and option products. Today much of this is auttomated but you still need to be a couple of steps ahead of the market, calculating potential positions and risks - to some degree - in your head. You probably wont get past this requirement if you are attempting to get a job: you will just need to practice these skills which can be developed through repetition .....
I am looking to do just simple prop trading nothing too mathematical. Irony is when it comes to Algebra I am pretty good. I honestly doubt the utility of learning this stuff, but it was where I fell down last time. Some guys I have spoke to have told me not to bother and to stick to technical analysis. My own view is that if I am doing rapid calculations in my mind all the time I will burn out - that is something to be automated. Right now when I trade I can keep the price which I entered at in my mind and know that if the bid / offer is lower / higher than that I made money... Still I believe the skill would help me find a job - no matter how irrational I believe my employers to be so I need to aquire it. Thanks for your help I will look to improve my short term memory.
I understand you because I have in fact the same problem with mental arithmetic I guess it is due to some child traumatism, maybe the same cause for you . I was said that at 2 years old my father had learned me multiplication up to 16 (so that I was exposed in family shows) - whereas as adult I merely know it up to ten so I made a mental regression . I was considered as very gifted when young and as I was only 5 I was put in a class with much elders than me with 10 years old children and the teacher the first day asked me to go to the board and made a division of 3 numbers by 2 numbers. I knew how to make a division by one number but not by two numbers so I couldn't answer and this #@!' teacher punished me by ordering to stand up on my knees on the table for the rest of the morning and before that he hit my fingers with a hard stick : I cried because I found that it was really an injustice to ask me that as I was so young and since that time I think I hate calculation . I asked to never go to school again and due to war I never went to school indeed up to seven years (so my father taught me at home instead). Later at college I had a teacher who had the habit at the end of each course to question mental arithmetic by taking anybody at random ... except me: I was first in maths at all the written exams so he thought that I was good at mental arithmetic also. It is not correlated at least in my case. I have also problem to memorize mathematical formulas. For example at engineering schools entry examination - which is a competition as the numbers of admission is limited with a quota - there is written exams and if you are well classified enough you have to pass the oral exams which are personal to each candidate. Unfortunately I had a question on some integral calculus. I wasn't able to do the calculation because I couldn't remember the formula exactly. So I had to demonstrate it step by step so as to find it and then I could make the calculation. The examinator was very impressed that I could demonstrate it - although he didn't ask it since he only asked me to do the calculation. So he gave me a very good note whereas I could get a very ugly note if I didn't have time to demonstrate it but the duration of the exam was 20 minutes so it saved me .