Some Thought on News and Event Trading

News and event trading has become a very popular trading style in these days. The reason behind it lies in the huge profit potential made in just a few minutes - with no effort at all.

Take for instance the first Friday of the month, when the non-farm payrolls report is released. The price of the EUR/USD can move around 150 pips in less than 10 minutes. That is US$1,500 (trade based in only one standard lot).

What traders fail to realize are all the risks involved in such practices. What if those 150 pips go against you? Even with a stop loss order, sometimes your broker won’t be able to honor it, because the price gaps (values between prices are not printed). In these cases, your broker won’t take the loss, so he will give you the closest printed price, meaning 70, 100, or 150 pips against you. That amount of pips could mean a margin call or a huge loss. In how much time again? …10 minutes.

The important thing here is that your job as a trader is to make sure you are going to be able to trade the next day, week, and years to come. Taking these kinds of risks won’t help much.

Other traders instead of using market orders to get in the market use stop and limit orders. But the same happens there, it is too risky, the market could again gap and your broker won’t be able to honor your stop. Traders that use this kind of strategy are taking uncalculated risks, risks that could cost them their trading account, and probably their trading careers.

Also, price movements are not always steady in one direction. It could go up and trigger some orders just to go back to the other extreme, then trigger the other side orders and then come back to where it all started.

The truth is, there is no possible way to forecast price movements in such circumstances. As we already know, the price moves based on traders and investors expectations. This is the combination of all traders perceptions on where price should be. To possibly know where the price is heading we need to ask every single trader and investor around the world what their intentions are during such announcements (something impossible to do). To go a little further, sometimes as the news report comes out, nothing happens, or worse, the price goes against the fundamentals.

Take for instance a day of interest rate announcement. It is rumored that there will be an interest rate cut. In this case, the currency will go short before the actual decision. Once the interest cut is announced, it is possible that the currency will be bought back, as all traders that could have shorted the currency, had already been short days or weeks ago. So there is no one else to short the currency. In this case, the price could be pushed up, against the fundamentals.

The point I want to make here is, trading itself is risky, and there are risks that you just cannot avoid, like the possibility to lose one trade. There are however some other risks that traders must avoid, as in event trading. The more you control your risks, the better results you will have. Take care of your risks; your profits will take care of themselves.

We consider trading the news announcements to be very risky.

Is there a system based solely on fundamental trading?

I am sure there is. But as with every system, it should have rules and setups that have to be present in order to get in the market, as well as money management controls etc.