[StrawberryWine]

Dummy question but how do I get the most out of my economic calendar for my day trading setups?

Like do you plan your whole day around events coming up or just use it to avoid nasty surprises? Which economic events do you pay attention to, just big ones or lesser-known events like manufacturing reports? Which calendars do you guys use? I use this one from Forex.com because that’s where I have an account but it’s very basic. Should I be using something difference?

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[TraderTim]

I like to filter my economic calendar to focus on high volatility events like interest rate decisions or employment reports. I mainly use the calendar from Forex Factory because it allows me to customize what I see.

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[George@C12]

Learn the most impactful economic indicators that can affect market movements:

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
• Unemployment Rate
• Consumer Price Index (CPI)
• Central bank interest rate decisions
• Retail Sales

Plan your trading sessions around the release of key economic data and be wary of the ‘whipsaw’, where prices move quickly in one direction and then reverse.

Set alerts for big economic events (many decent trading platforms support this). That way, you can stay updated without having to constantly monitor your calendar.

I don’t think the economic calendar you use is important – they all largely contain the same events and filters these days.

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[StrawberryWine]

Interesting points George, but I’m not sure I fully agree about economic calendars being the same. Some have more detailed analysis or integration with trading platforms, which I find useful for reacting to quickly.

Do you really think they’re all about the same or have you just stuck with one so far?

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[George@C12]

They largely all contain the same events and most allow you to filter by country or instrument and impact, so yes I don’t think it makes much different which one you use, whether that’s Investing.com, Forex Factory etc

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[HeikenHarry]

I’ve never bothered with economic calendars I just focus on price action and live market data. That’s all I need to make the markets my b****.

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[Christian Harris]

As mentioned by ‘TraderTim’, a popular third-party economic calendar to use is https://www.forexfactory.com/calendar

Many traders ‘specialise’ in trading high-impact economic events like NFP (NonFarm Payrolls), but it’s extremely risky.

I look daily at the excellent economic calendar built into my trading platform, cTrader, to ensure I don’t place a trade 1 hour before or after a high-impact event because of the potential to cause significant volatility.

Some day traders are very good at capitalising on big price movements, but it takes years of practise. I’m not very good at all.

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[StrawberryWine]

It’s good to understand how you apply yours to avoid especially volatile periods before and after events.

I’ve never used cTrader myself but it looks from your picture like it has similar filters to my Forex.com calendar particularly concerning the level of impact events could have.

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[Christian Harris]

When using an economic calendar, you might find it more helpful to filter events that aren’t relevant to the asset you’re trading to avoid confusion.

When I trade the Nasdaq-100, for example, cTrader only lists economic events relevant to that asset, such as US Fed meetings.

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