Before you place any trade, you must know what reports are being released that day.
You need to know this because the economic reports being released determine how the market will behave, both prior to the release of that report, and after it has been released.
Not knowing what reports are being released is like walking across a 6 lane highway with a blindfold on. You may find yourself in a trade, only to get hit by speeding bus full of grandparents on their way to Atlantic City.
The first thing you need to do before trading . . . before you open up the TradingView platform, . . . before you open your NinjaTrader platform, . . . you should always first visit forexfactory.com to see what reports, if any, are being released that day.
Below is what the forexfactory.com homepage looks like.
I want to draw your attention to the main section on the homepage, (see below).
We are primarily concerned with (almost exclusively concerned with), the RED USD reports. A red report refers to the red folder listed on the screen. Red Reports have the power to move the market, and that’s why we are concerned with them.
**NOTE** that ***we are ONLY concerned with USD RED REPORTS**. Other Red Reports have very little effect on the market, meaning that they don’t move the market at all, like a USD Red Report.
In short, you do NOT want to be in a trade during a red report, because you can not predict the direction the market will go until after the red report has been released.
It is wise to wait several minutes (up to 15 minutes?), after a Red Report is released before entering into a trade, so that you know what direction the market will go based on the results of that Red Report. Regardless of what the Red Report is, don’t be in a trade when a USD Red Report is released.
Now, if you want to know what the Red Report is about, and why it is important to you as a Trader, and how it affects the market, you can read more about the Red Report in question by clicking on the folder icon as shown below, as indicated by the red arrow.
After clicking on the icon, you will see the following pop-up.
Every piece of information on this page is incredibly valuable and you should make yourself familiar with what this report means, especially the section, “Why Traders Care”.
At first, these reports will have no meaning to you at all, however, the more you click on the Red Reports to read up on what they mean, the more familiar you will become with what they mean and what effect they will have on the market.
