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Chinese New Year and the offshore yuan

Chinese New Year brings a long closure in mainland markets, and liquidity in CNH and related Asian currencies drops. The effect can spill over to pairs like AUD/USD and other currencies sensitive to Chinese demand.

During the holiday, the Asian session can look unusually quiet, then abruptly move when something unexpected arrives. Price reaction to Chinese data before or after the break can be amplified by thinner depth.

For scalpers, this matters most for traders active in the Asian session, particularly with AUD, NZD, and Asian crosses. The usual daily patterns may disappear for a week or more.

An approach is to check the lunar calendar annually and mark the dates. Compare the performance of the system during these days with others and adjust size or pair choice accordingly.

It is also worth noting that exotics linked to Asian economies, such as USD/CNH or USD/SGD, can show unusual spreads and slippage in that period.

Does the strategy log show clear differences during the Chinese New Year week?

I trade AUDUSD and NZDUSD mostly in the early hours, so Chinese New Year always shows up in my numbers. The first year I ignored it and ended the week with a string of small losses, because the usual Asian range trades just didn't work. Price would sit flat for hours and then jump 15 or 20 pips on a headline with almost nothing underneath.

After that I went back through three years of my journal and tagged the holiday week and the few days around it. The average range on AUDUSD in those sessions was noticeably lower, about two thirds of normal, and my slippage on stops was roughly doubled. The mean-reversion setups I rely on were hit hardest.

What I do now is simple. I cut size by half for that week, widen the stop slightly so thin quotes do not catch me, and only trade London hours when volume returns. I also avoid USDCNH and the Asian exotics completely then, because the spreads looked terrible whenever I checked.