How much Math is used in Trading?
Do Trading jobs require a large amount of everyday math? What are the expectations for your math skills from others?
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It depends on the desk, but generally quick mental maths is more valuable than knowledge of more advanced maths (stochastic calculus, etc...)
On the trading floor, it is simple math, like bid price is $37.50 but ask price is $41.00. You'll have to quickly figure out the spread is $3.50.
However, things move fast and lots of numbers and stocks will be thrown at you.
for the majority of trading, the above answers are correct...just simple mental math...and more important is an understanding of how leveraged markets work...an understanding of the large players in your market (is the market dominated by a few large players...or is the market fairly distributed).
However, for quantitaive trading desks where everything is done by algo (for example, Citadel Securities is 98% algo...minimal human touches to the market) then the "traders" are equally quant programmers who musty indeed have higher math skills (like that kid from Harvard undergrad who was just given a $1mm hiring bonus to goto Citadel.).
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