Trading Days vs Calendar Days

Stocks trade about 252 days a year. Crypto trades 365 days a year.

That difference matters whenever you annualize anything -- volatility, Sharpe, Sortino, even daily risk-free rates.

Why it matters

If you treat a 24/7 asset like it only trades 252 days, you understate its risk. Weekends aren't "missing" for crypto -- they're real trading days.

The math

Annualized volatility scales by $\sqrt{N}$. So using 252 vs 365 can move the result by ~20%.

For daily excess returns, we also divide the risk-free rate by $N$, so the chosen calendar changes the target return.

What we do at Gale Finance

• Crypto/stablecoins: $N = 365$
• Equities/ETFs/metals: $N \approx 252$

We stick to each asset's native calendar to avoid smoothing away real moves.