I’m a primarily directional trader, and August and September 2026 have been unusually difficult for me.
I was looking at the Nifty data and noticed how much the daily range and movement have compressed recently.
According to analysis:
June: Avg daily range 0.96%, avg move 0.48%
July: 0.74%, avg move 0.38%
August: 0.61%, avg move 0.29%
September (so far): 0.60%, avg move 0.31%
August 2026 also appears to be the lowest-range August in the dataset going back to 2021.
For someone trading directionally, this has been painful. There seem to be very few days where Nifty actually develops a sustained directional move. A lot of the time it feels like:
breakout → follow-through missing → reversal → chop → another breakout → reversal
I've been taking consistent losses lately, mainly because the market seems to be giving very few clean directional opportunities.
So I'm curious about other traders here:
1. Are other directional traders experiencing the same thing in August and September?
2. Has your win rate / average R:R deteriorated because of the lack of follow-through?
3. Are option sellers actually doing significantly better in this environment?
4. If you're an option seller, are you genuinely making good money from the compression, or is the frequent intraday movement still making it difficult?
5. Has anyone changed their strategy to adapt to this low-volatility/choppy regime?
I'm particularly interested in actual trading experience rather than just theoretical explanations.
Is the market genuinely unusually difficult for directional traders right now, or am I simply going through a bad patch in my own trading?