personally i think this is an excellent question. it has been my experience that May is better than the "summer" months. granted in the summer of 98' there was the asian sell off, but the following summers, 99, 00, and, 01 have been really tough. probably one of the better strategies for summer would be spread trading, imho.
My personal experience is that August is the slowest. June/July are considerably slower but still tradeable, but if I plan summer vacation August is the best time for me. Vad
Why would anyone ever want to do anything else other than trade. ?? A vacation without a laptop for trading is really no vacation at all. The reality is (as I see it) is that everyone needs some time away...but all traders have that nagging sense that " gee, if I was there when that happened, I would have made a million $$"...or else "good thing I wasn't there" ...etc. Keep things in balance. you can't be there for every opportunity, but you can be there for most. The Summer months, over the last 3 years have been 99 great, 2000 so so, 2001 not great....IMO
It really depends on what you trade as well. I trade mostly Nasdaq so the summer months' low (relatively-speaking) volatility doesn't bother me much. The stocks that I normally trade such as QCOM, QLGC, NVLS, KLAC, EMLX, and XLNX are still perfectly tradeable in the summer. The slight slowing of the pace is actually quite nice. Ikspec
Previous post, thanks for that point: that it depends on what you trade. I forgot to mention I like to trade QQQs. Thanks for all the other good points too. What thoughts about trading QQQs in spring / summer vis a vis volume, liquidity, choppiness, relative volatility.