Make Informed Trading Decisions with an Economic Calendar

Stay Prepared for Market Volatility with the Forex Calendar

As a day trader, you need to be aware of the events marked in red on the Calendario economico. These are the events that tend to cause significant volatility in the market. Even the days leading up to the actual announcements can be volatile, as the markets tend to weigh in predictions related to upcoming events, making traders move towards a certain side of the trade.

Many traders cancel pending orders, causing a drop in market liquidity. Due to fewer orders, prices may move to highs and lows, before moving in a particular direction.

An example of this is the release of the US Non-Farm Payroll (NFP) Report, on the first Friday of each month, by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. The report provides data on the number of employees across various US industries, excluding agriculture, government and non-profit sectors, reflecting 80% of the US workforce.

A higher unemployment rate is generally not seen as a good sign, and causes the markets to decline, including the value of the US Dollar. At the same time, it affects many other parametres, such as consumer consumption figures, inflation and stock performance.

Traders anticipate the announcements and attempt to predict and plan trades accordingly. If the actual figures released are better than the predictions, it’s a signal that the markets might rise in response.

• Timing: All the data is listed in chronological order, segregated into weeks and listed according to the scheduled time of the economic release. Go to “Current time” and choose your time zone.
• Currency: A flag icon shows the country of a specific release, with the domestic currency visible next to it. This tells you which currencies are likely to be most affected by the news release.
• Event: Big news events can cause significant price swings. These are marked in red boxes, indicating high volatility events. Yellow boxes mark events that could cause mild fluctuations, while white boxes denote low volatility events. Click on the specific event to know more about the report and why it is important. You can also take a look at the graphs of the data released over a period of 5-6 years.
• Actual/Forecast/Previous: The “Previous” column contains data published in the last release, the frequency of which can vary from quarterly to daily. For every figure, we add a “Forecast,” based on the general market sentiment and expert opinion, so that you can remain alert regarding potential risks. On the release of the “Actual” data, it is immediately published on the right hand side of the forecast data.