A calendar of economic reports is an indispensable Forex trading tool!
Experienced traders begin preparation for each trading session by consulting an economic calendar so they can avoid trading at times when the market is likely to be volatile and unpredictable.
At the same time, if an intra-day trade is in progress with a potentially volatile economic report soon to be announced, a decision can be made as to whether to take the trade out, or at least move the stop to protect profits or minimize losses.
Seeing this is such an important Forex trading tool, it pays to look around and select the best from the free resources available online.
Listed below are three good calendars you may wish to add to your Forex trading tool collection. (For links to each of these calendars go to the resource box at the end of this article and click on the link for free resources.)
FXCM
The FXCM web site has an associated web site called dailyfx.com which provides a comprehensive daily calendar of fundamental announcements which can either be viewed online or downloaded as a PDF file.
Economic reports likely to have a major impact on the market are displayed in bold to make them stand out.
This downloadable report is useful if you wish to print out the daily calendar and have it on your desk or displayed beside your computer.
ForexFactory
This web site is very popular with thousands of visitors to the Forums each day. However, in my opinion, the best Forex trading tool it offers is the calendar.
You can customize the time to your own time zone so the calendar displays in local time when the fundamental announcements will be made. This is a great help in avoiding confusion from having to add or subtract from GMT or having to take into account daylight saving time.
The main benefit of this calendar is the color coding feature. Economic reports likely to have a major impact on the market are shown in red, medium impact reports in orange, and minor impact reports in yellow.
At a glance you can identify the times during the day when you need to exercise caution.
Econoday
The paid subscription version of the Econoday calendar is an essential Forex trading tool for many professional Forex traders and fund managers.
For the average day trader the free version available from Barrons will no doubt suffice. One very helpful feature of this web site is the link to why the economic report matters. A detailed explanation is given on all the major economic reports as to why the market cares and the effect it can have.
Economic Reports – Market Movers
Not all economic reports are market movers. However, there are about 15 economic reports that have a medium to high impact on the US Dollar and up to 10 or 11 economic reports that have a medium to high impact on the British Pound, Euro, Swiss Franc, Australian Dollar and Canadian Dollar.
Navigating your way through a trading day without using a calendar would be like attempting to cross a minefield without a mine detector!
Be sure you take advantage of this major Forex trading tool – the economic report calendar. Use the online resources available for free and make them part of your daily Forex trading session preparation routine.
By: Michael A Jones
About the Author:
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