Calendar and expectations

The calendar lists dozens of items every day, and most of them don't even nudge price. Only a few shake the ridge, and the biggest ones come from the US. Since the dollar is the most widely used currency in the world, these numbers move dollar pairs, gold and the Nasdaq together.

Inflation (CPI, the Consumer Price Index): how much prices rose over a year. It comes out once a month, usually around the middle of the month.

Nonfarm payrolls (NFP): how many new jobs the economy added in a month. It usually comes out on the first Friday of the month.

Rate decision (FOMC): the interest rate decision of the Fed, the US central bank. It's announced eight times a year, on dates set in advance.

Most big US releases (inflation, jobs) come out at 8:30 a.m. New York time. In UTC that's 12:30 while the US is on daylight saving time (from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November), and 13:30 the rest of the year.

The Fed's rate decision comes at 2:00 p.m. New York time: 18:00 or 19:00 UTC. Half an hour later, the Fed chair's press conference begins.

The calendar usually rates each item's impact too: high, medium, low. Everything you'll learn in this zone is about high-impact news.

Before a release, dozens of economists make their predictions; their average is called the forecast, or consensus. The calendar lists it right next to the number.

The market prices in the forecast ahead of time: if 180,000 is expected, price is already positioned for 180,000.

If the actual is close to the forecast, there's no surprise and the reaction stays small. The bigger the difference, the bigger the jolt.

If US data comes in stronger than forecast (more jobs, higher inflation), the market expects the Fed to keep rates high: the dollar usually strengthens and gold usually falls.

The Nasdaq's reaction is messier: if fear of high rates wins out, it falls too.

If the data comes in weaker than forecast, the opposite happens. Notice the word 'usually': sometimes the first reaction reverses within minutes. Learn this to understand the reaction when it comes, not to guess the direction.

As a big release gets close, buyers and sellers alike avoid taking big positions: nobody knows the number.

Candles shrink and price squeezes into a narrow range. The chart looks calm, but that calm says nothing about direction.

Stops pile up just above and just below the squeeze. Remember the Underground Lake: beyond every clear high and low lies a pool.

The moment the number lands, market makers cut their risk: the difference between the buy and sell price, the spread, suddenly widens.

When price moves very fast, your stop order fills at the first price available, not the one you wanted. That's slippage: your loss can be bigger than you planned.

That's why you don't open a new trade minutes before high-impact data.