Can I trade news or data releases?

Modified on Wed, 11 Dec at 9:26 AM

TradeDay does not allow trading tier 1 economic data releases.

We require traders to have no open positions and be working no orders in the order book, from 2 minutes before the data release, until 2 minutes after the data release.

Breaches of this rule will result in an immediate failure of the evaluation, and for funded traders a loss of the funded account.

We are adopting a zero tolerance approach to this rule, as numerous traders are continuing to ignore it!

All windfall profits will be withheld from the funded trader, and their accounts adjusted accordingly.

We consider tier 1 data to be the following:

FOMC minutes - All products	1:00 PM CT
FOMC interest rate decision statement - All products	1:00 PM CT
US CPI - All products	7:30 AM CT
US employment report (Non-Farm Payrolls) - All products	7:30 AM CT
Crude Oil Inventories (EIA) - Oil contracts only	9:30 AM CT / 10:00 AM CT*
Natural Gas Inventories (EIA) - Gas contracts only	9:30 AM CT
Crop production reports - Ags contacts only	11:00 AM CT

*Pending Abbreviated Trading Hours. Times are subject to change without notice, traders are responsible for being aware of what economic releases are and when they occur.

Times are subject to change without notice, and traders are responsible for being aware of what economic releases are and when they occur.

Where can I view this data?

We have created a page that lists the TradeDay tier 1 data release calendar dates. It can be found here.

We have two economic data release calendars that can be accessed from the TradeDay Members area, from the Trading Room, an embedded calendar from Investing.com and also there is a link to the CME calendar, go here.

Why do we have this rule?

We know from many years of trading experience and many years of managing trading teams that trading major economic data releases is a strategy that does not pay off in the long run.

It is also incredibly high risk. We are looking to fund traders who can produce risk-adjusted returns, not gamblers looking to exploit the trading group's leverage and risk in order to make a gamble for a quick short-term windfall profit.

If you would like to understand our view on why we see trading data releases as a losing strategy, please head over to our blog post here.