Seven Announcements to Watch When You Trade

Many traders at the retail end of the market use technical analysis for their trading activity. While there is nothing wrong with that, it must be remembered that a big news item does not respect a double top or inverted head and shoulders pattern on the charts. It just does its thing and anyone who wants to make money from the trades has to fall in line. It is therefore important that traders keep an eye for some of these news releases.  It may be better for all technical tradess to be closed before they come up. Here are 7 announcements to watch when you trade.

NFP

The Non-Farm Payrolls report in the US is released at 8.15 EST on the 1^st Friday of the new month, except during holidays (such as we just had on July 3 2015 which was declared a holiday to commemorate America’s July 4 independence which fell on a weekend this year). This piece of news affects many different markets and assets. It produces a lot of volatility on USD and JPY pairs, so it is important that you watch this announcement closely when you trade because it may cause extreme volatility.

Interest Rates

Interest rate decisions determine monetary policy and therefore the investment flows into the affected country’s financial markets as well as the banking system. There are countries where the interest rate decisions are a lot more relevant than in others. For instance, the US has had near zero interest rates for a long time now. With the economy recovering, everyone is watching for when the Feds will raise rates. You can be sure that when this decision is eventually made, it will cause market volatility. You only need to look at the New Zealand Dollar’s charts in the last three weeks July 2015 to see what the lowering of interest rates has done to that currency.

Chinese Manufacturing Data

This is very relevant to traders in the Asian region, especially for those trading the Aussie Dollar. China imports a lot of its raw materials from Australia to feed its thirsty industries. So the state of manufacturing in the country which accounts for 40% of the world’s manufacturing activity is one of the announcements to watch when you trade.

Other key data announcements to watch when you trade are:

Inflation Data (PPI and CPI)

Producer and consumer price indices are the inflation data which are used by the central banks to fix interest rates. These data announcements may be market movers and must be watched.

Unemployment Rate

This is usually released as an employment news data bundle which includes number of jobs added. It goes by different names in different countries.

GDP

The GDP reports are huge market movers and constitute announcements to be watched when you trade.

Rate Statements

In some countries, the speeches given by the Heads of the central bank committees are of more market value than the interest rate decision itself (e.g. Europe, Australia).

You also need to watch the following announcements when you trade:

• Core Retail Sales
•  Business Confidence reports
•  Various manufacturer’s surveys such as the Purchasing Managers Indices.

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