Being a trader doesn’t mean you MUST trade every single day. You’ll probably find the bulk of your trades take places on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and that when you enter your first trade late in the day it tends to not go so well. There is a reason for this. Look to the first 30-min bar of the ES for clues.

Below is a list of day’s to watch out for when trading. You’re better off taking the day off and doing something more enjoyable than watching the market go nowhere.

Day’s NOT to trade:

Future’s Rollover Thursday (primarily if you’re trading futures)

Future’s rollover takes place on the second Thursday of every third month (March, June, September, & December). This day is dangerous because volume moves from the current contract month to the next month (new front month) So, for example, Dec. 9, 2010 was our last futures rollover. Volume transferred from the December contract to the March contract, thus allowing for a less liquid market in both contracts. The days between rollover Thursday and options X (the following Friday) we see two different sets of prices making it harder for technical traders to trade. Typically moving to the new current month is the safest way to trade during this time (i.e. on Dec 10th move to the March contract).

Half Day Holiday’s

This includes day’s such as Black Friday. These day’s will be low volume and the pit will be extremely thin, very low liquidity.

Bank Holiday’s

A couple times during the year we have a bank holiday and the markets are open. As you can probably tell the them to day’s to stay away from, this is another low liquidity trading day and should be avoided.