Forex Factory Calendar: Your 2023 Step-By-Step Guide (2024)

Today I’m going to show you exactly how to use the Forex Factory calendar to improve your trading.

Plus, I’ll share one of my favorite trading strategies to use following news events.

It’s a strategy I’ve used for over a decade and still works amazingly well today!

So if you want to learn how to use the best Forex calendar on the web and profit from news events, you’ll love this guide.

Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Navigate to the Forex Factory Calendar

The very first thing you want to do is navigate to theForex Factory calendar.

Once there, you should be presented with a screen similar to the one below.

Don’t be intimidated by all of the activityon this page. It will all make sense by the end of the tutorial.

Next we will begin configuring the Forex calendarso that you can get the most out of it.

Step 2: Configure Your Time Zone

Now that you’re on the calendar tab, you will want to set your time zone.

To do this, simply click the time in the upper right hand corner.

After clicking the time stamp, you will be taken to a page where you can set your time zone.

This will synchronize the time for each news event with your local time.

Don’t skip this step!

If you do, it’ll be incredibly difficult to determine when these events are starting.

At this point youalso have the option to turn Daylight Savings Time (DST) on or off.

Lastly you can toggle the time format to show either am/pm or 24 hour “military time”.

Once you are happy with the settings, click “Save Settings” so that you won’t be required to do this each time.

The ability to sync the calendar with your time zone is one of my favorite features of the Forex Factory calendar.

After saving your settings, youshould now see the correct time displayed in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

If not, repeat step 2 to make sure your settings were saved properly.

Step 3: Set the Forex Factory Event Filter

At this point you should have the Forex Factory economic calendar in front of you with each news event synchronized with your local time.

Next we aregoing to set the event filter to determine the type of news and currenciesto display.

This is convenient if you only want to display certaintypesof news events or are only interested in specificcurrency pairs.

To set the filter, click the “Filter” icon in the upper right hand corner while on the calendar tab.

After clicking “Filter”, you will get a screen like the one below.

This screen gives you the ability to filter events by expected impact, event type as well as currency.

Pro Tip: Hover your mouse over the colored boxes under “Expected Impact” to get an explanation of each one. In short, red equals high-impact, orange is medium-impact and yellow represents low-impact news.

I like to focus on the medium and high-impact news events.

This gives me a complete picture of what to expect over the coming days without cluttering the Forex Factory calendar with news that will have little impact on the markets.

Once you have everything set the way you want, click “Apply Filter” to begin showing only the events and currencies you selected.

You can change this any time by repeating this step.

Step 4: Select Your DesiredDates

You should now have your time zone set and your filter configured the way you want.

Now it’s time to select the desired time frame.

This is the span of time that will be shown on the calendar.

The navigation paneyou seebelow will allow you to set any time frame you desire.

From this window, you can choose a single day, aweek or even the entire month.

Also note that you can quickly selectpredetermined time frames in the bottomhalf of the navigation pane.

Pro Tip:Choosing to see the entire week is often the best approach when trading the higher time frames. This allows you to preparefor the next few days rather than just the next 24 hours.

Step 5: Check the Forex Factory Event Details

In addition to seeing the “surface content” such as the event name, expected impact and scheduled time, you can also expand each event to see additional information.

Be sure to use this feature with caution.

It can be far too easy to get caught up in the nuances of each event.

As price action traders, we need to bemore concerned aboutwhat’s happening on the chart and less concerned about the fundamental significance of news.

The image below illustrates how you can expand the details of a given news event.

Once the icon above is clicked, you will see additional details of the Forex news event.

From the screen above, you can see additional detailssuch as the source, frequency and history of the event to name a few.

To close this window, simply click the “X” shown in the image above.

Before we move on, I want to reiterate how important it is to use these additional detailssparingly, if at all.

The advantage to using the Forex Factory calendar as a technical trader lies in the scheduled time and expected impact of the news.

Anything more than that and using a news calendar can become more of a distraction than an asset.

That concludes the process of setting up the Forex Factory news calendar.

Now let’s get into the second half of this tutorial and discuss how to use what you’ve just learnedto your advantage when trading Forex price action.

Choosing the Important Forex News Headlines

Knowing how to set up the Forex Factory calendar is one thing, knowing how to use it properlyis quite another.

The first thing to understand is that you only want to focus on themarket-moving events.

This means setting the filter to include only the medium and high-impact news events.

By doing this,you don’t have to sift through the low-impact news to find the events that are likely to cause increased volatility.

Here are some high-impact events to watch for:

• Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)
• Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP)
• Unemployment rates
• Final Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
• Monetary policy announcements
• Any central bank rate decisions

Before moving on, let’s recap what you have learnedthus far.

By now you should have the time zone, filter and time frame set for your calendar.

You should know how to view additional details of a news event as well as which events are most likely to cause an increase in volatility.

Next we will get intohow to strategically position your trades around major news events so as to minimize your risk.

How to Trade Using the Forex Factory Calendar

The reason we want to use the Forex Factory calendar is to know when market-moving news is expected and thereby avoid or prepare for periods of high volatility.

As such, I want to run through a few basic rules when it comes to trading around the news.

All of the scenariosbelow assume that the news event in question would hypothetically impact your trade.

For example, trading USDJPY ahead of non-farm payroll.

No open positions ahead of a news event

This is obviously the safest place to be with major news around the corner.

You have nothing at risk and you get to objectively analyze the price action that forms as a result of the news.

But what if the news isn’t just around the corner?

How much time is needed between putting on a new position and a scheduled news event that could adversely affect that position?

This is a hard question to answeras it depends on a few factors.

• The trader –Every trader is different and therefore has different requirements when it comes to how risk averse they are.
• The time frame – On average, a trade on the 1-hour chart will require less time between the entry and the pending news than a trade on the daily time frame.
• Distance totake profit – A trade with a 50 pip profit targetwill require less time than a trade with a 300 pip target, hypothetically speaking of course.

As a general rule, I don’t like to place trades within 24 hours of high-impact news.

Open position – small profit

This scenario involves an open position that is in profit, but stands a good chance of turning negative if the news event in question adversely affects the position.

We’ve all been there – that point of indecision before a major news event is about to hit.

Should you close the trade and book a small profit to be safe?

But then what if the market moves in favor of your position?

If you close it now you risk missing out on potential profits.

In my experience, most traders fear a missed opportunity more than they fear losing capital.

This couldn’t be more wrong.

Remember, your number one job as a trader is capital preservation!

Making money always comes second.

The path I choose 95% of the time in this situation is to take my small profit and get out.

I can always get back in later if the market presents a favorable opportunity.

When in doubt, get out!

Open position – largeprofit

The last scenariowe’re going to discuss is the second safest place to be behind having no open position, of course.

When a high impact news event is around the corner and you have a position that is well into profit, you have more options.

It’s much easier to ride out a majornews event if you know your position is 200 pips in the money.

One thing that can influence your decision here is how far away your trade is from its profit target.

Let’s assume this position was originally aiming for a 300 pip profit targetand is now just 40 pips from the target.

In this case I would be more likely to close the trade before the news event to book profits.

To risk giving back 260 pips for an additional 40 pips isn’t the greatest of propositions.

Your other options are to take a partial profit and leave the remaining position on or keep the entire position open throughout the event.

I’m not a huge fan of taking partial profits so I usuallyopt to go all or nothing.

But one thing is certain, you have a lot more options with a position that has run into considerable profit.

Using Technical Analysis to “Read” Forex News

Now it’s time to bring it all together.

How do you combine the tools on Forex Factory with simple technical analysis to profit?

Here are two of my favorite price action strategies:

Pin Bar

Some of the best pin bars form after a major news event, and the Forex Factory calendar is an excellent way to spot them!

In fact one of my favorite setups is the NFP pin bar.

This is because NFPs are released at 8:30 am EST andthe 4 hour candle on my New York close chart closes at 9am EST, giving the market thirty minutes to react.

The timing of a news event like this can often cause the price for US Dollar pairs to rise or fall quickly, thus forming a 4 hour pin bar.

Of course it isn’t always the case, but when an NFP pin bar forms at a key level, it’s often worth taking.

Inside Bar

The inside bar can be thought of as the opposite to the pin bar.

While the pin bar represents a volatile push in either direction, the inside bar represents consolidation after a large move.

So whereas the pin bar forms as news is released, the inside bar often forms the day after a news release.

This is why the inside bar setup is often referred to as a type of breakout strategy.

Pro Tip:While the pin bar can be traded on the daily or 4 hour time frame, the inside bar is best traded only on the daily time frame.

Before we end this section, I would like to point out that the news which causes these types of moves isn’t always immediately apparent.

The markets can move because ofan unscheduled event or perhaps an event that has already passed and the market is just now realizing the impact.

Regardless of how or when the news occurs, the two strategies above give you a quick and easy way to read the news via your charts.

Final Words

The tools on the Forex Factory website, namely the economic calendar, can be incredibly valuable as a Forex trader.

But remember that trading the news is always risky due to the extreme volatility.

That’s why it’s often best to wait for the news event to pass before looking for trade setups.

The pin bar strategy is one of my favorite ways to enter a trade following a high-impact news event on the Forex Factory calendar.

Frequently Asked Questions

Wait, Before You Go…

Are you ready to start using the Forex Factory calendar to improve your trading?

If so, you definitely want to download thefreePDF guide below.

It contains step-by-step instructions on how to use the Forex Factory calendar in a convenient PDF format.

I also show you how to trade around news events, including my two favorite trading strategies.

Click the link below and enter your email to get instant access to the PDF guide.