I'm putting together a spreadsheet for my trading plan and realized I have no idea how many actual trading days there are in a year. Google says "about 252" but that seems to vary.
Also — are there days you should avoid even if the market is open? Like half-days before holidays, or those random days where volume is dead? Trying to figure out how many "real" trading days I should plan for.
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252 is the standard number for US equities (NYSE/NASDAQ). It's 365 minus weekends (104), minus ~9 market holidays. Some years it's 250, some 253, depending on how holidays fall.
But you asked the right follow-up question. The "real" number is lower. You should probably avoid: the day before Christmas, day after Thanksgiving, and any half-day sessions. Volume is garbage and moves are random. That takes you down to maybe 245 usable days.
For futures and forex it's different. Futures trade nearly 24/5 so you have more sessions. Forex is 24/5 with no official holidays though liquidity drops around Christmas and New Year.
Don't forget FOMC days, CPI/NFP releases, and quad witching. Those are technically trading days but they play by completely different rules. I exclude them from my stats because they skew everything.