Summer liquidity: adjusting session playbooks for July and August

[FXS London Scalper]

From mid-July to late August, a lot of European desks run with fewer people. The London session still opens, but the character changes:

- Ranges in the first hour are often 20–30% smaller than in spring.
- Breakouts fail more often because there's less follow-through.
- Spikes on minor news can be larger because the book is thin.
- Lunchtime in London can be almost dead.

Adjustments worth considering:

Targets. If the 15-minute ATR at 08:00 drops from 8 pips to 6, a fixed 6-pip target becomes much harder to hit. Scale targets with ATR rather than leaving them static.

Trade count. Lower the daily cap. Fewer good setups exist, so the cap shouldn't stay the same.

Setup choice. Range fades tend to work better than breakouts in quiet weeks.

Hours. Some scalpers shift attention to the NY open, where US participation holds up better through summer.

Time off. Taking two weeks off in August costs very little for many scalpers. The market will be there in September.

What do your summer stats look like compared to the rest of the year?