Dead market days: sit out or adapt?

[Shadow Trader]

Some days the market just doesn't move. Ranges of 25 pips on EURUSD, nothing breaks, nothing sustains.

Two schools of thought. The first says to sit it out: costs are the same, opportunity is smaller, and forcing trades only donates to the broker. The second says to adapt: switch to tighter targets, trade the range, and treat the quiet as a different regime.

The risk with adapting is that "adjusting" often becomes "overtrading out of boredom". The risk with sitting out is missing the occasional break that does arrive late.

A middle option is setting a clear volatility threshold, for example average range over the last hour. Below it, no trades. Above it, normal rules. That removes the guesswork and the mood.

One possible threshold: take the average range of the last 60 minutes and compare it to the same measure averaged across the past 20 days for the same hour. If it's below, say, 60% of normal, the day gets flagged as slow, and the plan says reduced size or no trades. Numbers like that remove the argument with oneself in the moment.

How does a dead day get identified in real time, and does the approach lean toward staying out or adapting?