How to trade the economic calendar

The forex economic calendar covers close to 4,000 macroeconomic events​, also incorporating central bank meetings and important speeches, to offer a complete picture of the world’s important economic announcements. These include the closely-watched US non-farm payrolls release, CPI and PPI data, plus manufacturing figures from major economies including the US, UK, eurozone, China and Japan. You can also obtain at-a-glance information on major announcements for economies such as India and New Zealand.

The customisable nature of the calendar allows you to sort events by date, country, timeframe, category or its likely impact on the market. Each event is categorised into high, medium and low impact levels, based on five years’ worth of back-testing and historical price data. These distinctions help you to determine which announcements are likely to have the most impact on the financial markets.

You are also able to drill down into a specific country and access charts for data such as interest rates and GDP, and compare these with the same data from other countries.

Ultimately, you can set up the calendar to suit your preferences and trading strategy – you could choose to view only the events that are relevant to a specific instrument (EUR/USD or UK 100), or by the particular asset class (forex, indices, shares, commodities or treasuries) that you wish to trade.

The global view lets you compare major economic indicators for 34 countries, including interest rates, gross domestic product (GDP), inflation rates, unemployment levels and consumer confidence data.

Graphically compare different event results country to country, by choosing from the dropdown menu or selecting the tick boxes below the charts. Comparing charts helps to identify key trends for individual countries, or to help compare data between countries. You can also use the ‘source’ button to access articles associated with individual economic events for further information.

The dashboard pulls together a series of informative tables to help broaden your economic knowledge, offering a broad and comparative global view. Look up GDP, unemployment or interest rates worldwide, or find out about data such as corporate tax rates and foreign investment.

This useful feature helps you access the latest results for the major economic events, separated by sector, so you know you always have the latest information for those announcements which are more likely to impact the instruments you’re looking to trade.