An economic calendar is not for guessing the number: it is for knowing when your market will stop behaving as usual. Every future has its fixed dates, and trading without knowing them is the dumbest way to lose a daily limit. This guide lists which ones move each market, when they usually come out and what to do the week before.
Which release moves which market
Usual times in US Eastern Time (ET); the agencies change them occasionally, so confirm them in each week's calendar.
| Release | When (usual) | Markets it moves most |
|---|---|---|
| Fed decision (FOMC) and press conference | 8 meetings a year, statement 14:00 ET, press conference 14:30 | ES, NQ, YM, RTY, ZN, ZB, 6E, DX, GC |
| Nonfarm payrolls (NFP) | First Friday of the month, 8:30 ET | Indexes, bonds, dollar |
| CPI | Mid-month, 8:30 ET | Indexes, bonds, dollar, gold |
| PCE (consumption deflator) | End of month, 8:30 ET | Bonds, indexes |
| GDP | Quarterly with revisions, 8:30 ET | Indexes, bonds |
| ISM manufacturing / services | First and third business day of the month, 10:00 ET | Indexes, bonds |
| Retail sales | Mid-month, 8:30 ET | Indexes, RTY |
| Jobless claims | Thursdays, 8:30 ET | Indexes, bonds (smaller effect) |
| EIA petroleum inventories | Wednesdays, 10:30 ET | CL, RB, HO |
| EIA natural gas storage | Thursdays, 10:30 ET | NG |
| USDA WASDE | Monthly, 12:00 ET | ZC, ZS, ZW, ZM, ZL |
| USDA Grain Stocks, Prospective Plantings, Acreage | Quarterly; end of March; end of June, 12:00 ET | ZC, ZS, ZW |
| USDA Crop Progress | Mondays in season, 16:00 ET | ZC, ZS (overnight open) |
| CFTC Commitments of Traders | Fridays, 15:30 ET (Tuesday's positions) | Positioning context for every market |
| Mega-cap earnings | After the close, in earnings season | NQ in the overnight session |
The surprise moves price, not the number
The market arrives at every release with a consensus already priced in. A "high" CPI that matches expectations may move nothing; a "low" one that comes in two tenths below consensus can move NQ 2%. What to look at is not the number but three things: the gap to consensus, the reaction of the first minutes (which often reverses) and which market leads it. Bonds usually react earlier and cleaner than indexes to inflation and jobs data; watching them helps you not chase the first ES candle.
What happens around the release
- Before: volume dries up in the preceding minutes, the spread widens a tick or two and moves are erratic. It is a bad time to enter with market orders.
- In the second of the release: algorithms trade before a human reads the headline. Stops placed just above or below the prior range get filled with several ticks of slippage.
- The first five minutes: the initial reaction reverses frequently, especially when the headline and the details point in different directions.
- After: the day's trend is usually decided 15 to 60 minutes later, not in the first minute. If you are going to trade the news, that is the stretch with the most information and the least noise.
Prop firms and news
Many prop firms restrict or forbid holding positions through certain high-impact releases, with their own lists and time windows, which also change. Some apply it only to funded accounts, others to evaluations too; some treat it as a violation and others as grounds to void the profit of those trades. There is no general rule: read your account's, and note in your calendar the releases it considers restricted, which do not always coincide with the ones that move the market.
Even without a restriction, the daily limit does the job: a 1% news move in the indexes with two contracts is a loss that exceeds the limit of most 50K accounts. The guide to trailing drawdown explains why, under intraday trailing, a favorable spike during the news hurts you too.
The Sunday routine
- Open the week's calendar filtered by high impact and by the markets you trade.
- Mark the "flat" or "half size" windows: ten minutes before and thirty after every release that affects your market.
- If one day concentrates FOMC, CPI or NFP, decide in advance whether it is a day off. A day not traded costs zero; a day traded badly costs the daily limit.
- For commodity markets, note the fixed weekly dates (EIA Wednesday and Thursday, Crop Progress Monday) as if they were part of the schedule.
- Write the plan in the journal and do not change it within the week.
News days, separately in the journal
Trades on an FOMC day do not behave like those on a quiet Tuesday: slippage is larger, stops get hit more and targets are reached faster. If you mix them with the rest, they distort your setup statistics in both directions. Tag them with a context tag ("news") and look at their expectancy separately; with 30 trades you will know whether your setup lives or dies on those days, as the guide to setups and expectancy explains.
Official sources
- Federal Reserve: FOMC meeting calendar and statements.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): payrolls, CPI, weekly claims.
- Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA): GDP and PCE.
- EIA: Weekly Petroleum Status Report and natural gas storage.
- USDA: WASDE, NASS (Crop Progress, Grain Stocks, Acreage).
- CFTC: Commitments of Traders.
Aggregators are convenient, but when a time does not add up, the official source is right.
Frequently asked questions
Can I trade during the FOMC?
Usually you can, if your prop firm does not forbid it; you should, almost never. In the minutes of the statement and the press conference the spread widens, market orders pay several ticks of slippage and stops get hit in both directions. If you trade the reaction, do it with a plan written beforehand and at half size.
What time do the releases come out? I live in Europe.
Releases are announced in US Eastern Time (ET). 8:30 ET is 14:30 in Madrid during summer time and also 14:30 in winter, except for the two weeks when the clock changes do not coincide. Always use a calendar that converts to your time zone; a one-hour mistake on FOMC day is expensive.
Which USDA report matters most for grains?
The monthly WASDE, which updates world supply and demand, and the quarterly Grain Stocks. In spring, Prospective Plantings at the end of March and Acreage at the end of June are the two that move corn and soybeans most. In season, the weekly Crop Progress adjusts expectations every Monday.
Next step
Do the Sunday routine today with this week's calendar and write the flat windows in your journal. Then tag the trades from your last few news days and compare their expectancy with the rest: the guide to how to keep a futures journal explains what to record so that comparison is possible.