How To Use The Free Forex Factory News Calendar In Trading.
Forex Factory is an online trading website that features a Forex economic news calendar that lists all of the news events and upcoming news releases for the weeks ahead. For many Forex traders, it is the first place they look before starting their trading day.
The Forex Factory calendar, as they put it themselves is ” highly advanced, famously reliable forex calendar packed with features and information that helps forex traders make better decisions.”
If your Forex trading method has you taking part in news trading, there is no question that an up to the minute FX calendar is a required tool. Fortunately, while there are daily Forex calendars that you can pay a premium price for, the Forex Factory news calendar is completely free for any trader.
In this graphic, you can see how cleanly the new events and releases are laid out.
FOREX FACTORY NEWS CALENDAR.
You can see that the calendar at Forex Factory is probably one of the best Forex calendars you will find for free on the internet. In order to take full advantage of the benefits of Forex news, you should know how the economic calendar is laid out.
Let’s start on the left side of the image and cover what each column represents.
The date column ensures you are looking at the proper economic events for your trading day. Because you can look weeks into the future, ensure this date is the date you are trading. You need to know when the economic release is happening and this calendar shows that time and can be customized to fit your own time zone. Not every release matters to every currency pair. Here you will see which currency will be affected by the release. The impact section is vital. Red rated reports on the Forex Factory calendar represent news events that can shake the FX market. Orange is medium impact and yellow indicates low impact news reports. You should know the name of the report and eventually you will know that news releases such as Non-Farm Payroll and unemployment rate can rock the market and you won’t need the impact section of the economic calendar. Learn what each report means through the detail section. You can also view past economic releases for you news trading junkies. Actual means the actual number, such as unemployment rate, that has occurred. Forecast is what was being expected. A large difference between expectations and actual numbers can influence the impact of the release on the the Forex/Stock market. Previous is where you can compare the current news event with the last one. This can indicate whether things are getting worse or are improving. Graph simply plots out previous releases so you can visually see the decline or incline.
How You Can Use The Forex Factory Calendar.
If you are a swing trader, daily news events may be not much of a concern but for a day trader, you need to know exactly what news events are coming so you can take action.
Perhaps you stand aside until the impact of the release passes You may look to tighten up a stop on a current Forex trade If you news trade, you may take a position as soon as the news comes out. For this though, you may want a live news event feed.
Are all releases important? No. For the most part, traders focus on the red rated reports because the impact on the markets can be intense at times.
How Important Are News Releases In General?
News events are very important especially ones that directly measure the state of the economy and interest rates. If you think of the Forex market where you are trading currency pairs, a countries economic health is vital to the currency .
Let’s say for a moment you are trading USDCAD. You would want to know the release numbers for both of the currencies. If you are a bull for the USD and are holding a long position, any number such as NFP is important. This shows how many jobs were created or lost the previous months.
If jobs are created and surpass the forecast number, expect to see the USD gain strength.
On the flip side of that, weak numbers less than forecast or even negative numbers can weaken the USD. That said, still be in tune with the overall trend of the FX pair. It takes a lot to change a long term trend and unless the calendar news release points to continued weakness, a trend change may occur.
Conclusion.
Keep it simple when trying to decipher the meaning of the news events. Just being aware of the impact level on the Forex Factory trading calendar can help you decide on a trading strategy and take appropriate steps to manage your trading risk. Being on the wrong side of a high impact news release can be devastating.