The week between Christmas and New Year: thin markets and odd fills
Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2026 6:28 pm
The week between Christmas and New Year: thin markets and odd fills
The last week of December is a strange time to trade. A lot of banks run skeleton desks, many traders are off, and liquidity in FX drops a lot. Some days look almost normal. Others are dead for hours and then jump on nothing.
The practical effects for a scalper are mostly about cost and reliability. Spreads tend to be wider than usual, especially outside the core London and New York hours. Price can drift through levels without the reactions you'd normally expect, because the people who'd usually defend them aren't there. And when something does happen, a headline or a big order, the move can overshoot.
There's also year-end flows. Some institutions adjust positions before the year closes, and that can push certain pairs in a way that doesn't fit the technical picture at all.
Honestly, I mostly don't trade it. If I do, it's tiny size and only during the busiest hours, with the expectation that setups will behave worse than usual. Same for the first couple of days of January, before everyone's properly back.
The yearly review fits better into that week anyway. Go through the journal, look at the year's numbers, and plan changes for January. That's probably more useful than forcing trades in a market that isn't really there.
The last week of December is a strange time to trade. A lot of banks run skeleton desks, many traders are off, and liquidity in FX drops a lot. Some days look almost normal. Others are dead for hours and then jump on nothing.
The practical effects for a scalper are mostly about cost and reliability. Spreads tend to be wider than usual, especially outside the core London and New York hours. Price can drift through levels without the reactions you'd normally expect, because the people who'd usually defend them aren't there. And when something does happen, a headline or a big order, the move can overshoot.
There's also year-end flows. Some institutions adjust positions before the year closes, and that can push certain pairs in a way that doesn't fit the technical picture at all.
Honestly, I mostly don't trade it. If I do, it's tiny size and only during the busiest hours, with the expectation that setups will behave worse than usual. Same for the first couple of days of January, before everyone's properly back.
The yearly review fits better into that week anyway. Go through the journal, look at the year's numbers, and plan changes for January. That's probably more useful than forcing trades in a market that isn't really there.