An economic calendar lists scheduled releases and events that can move rates. Traders use it to plan around spread widening, slippage, and gap risk rather than to guarantee direction.
Impact labels are imperfect
“High impact” is a useful filter, but market sensitivity changes with regime. Treat labels as priors, not laws.
Risk workflow
Many traders reduce size or flatten into known events; others specialize in news reactions. Either way, define rules in advance.
Use MyForexTool’s economic calendar alongside calculators for pre-event planning.
Consensus vs actual is only the headline
Markets can move on revisions, forward guidance language, or cross-reads from embedded components. The calendar tells you when to pay attention; the release detail tells you what traders argued about.
Operational habits
- Size down or flatten ahead of binary events you do not trade.
- Widen alert thresholds around prints you do trade.
- Log slippage and spread for post-mortems.
Respecting the gap between forecast and fill
Even clean “beats” can see whipsaw as positioning unwinds. Planning only the first ten seconds after a print is rarely enough—think minutes to hours of messy two-way trade.