Most traders that I know do not trade fundamental news releases in any financial markets. I have come to the Foreign Exchange market about 7 years ago and I have successfully traded these macroeconomic events for about a few years. From the very first days in the market I noticed that when economic news is released there are big moves in all financial markets, not only in forex. I asked myself if I could trade these events profitably and after a few years of time managed to create a profitable news trading system. Let me share a couple of tips with you.

First of all, I use technical analysis in my trading and even though news events that I trade belong to the field of fundamental analysis I manage to trade them technically. My technical tools in this type of trading strategy are channels, trendlines, candle patterns and an effective money management system. Risk management with the help of stop loss orders and maximum of 2 percent of capital risk per trade are key elements in this type of trading.

So, when I look at my economic calendar and I see that today there is some important economic news like: nonfarm payrolls, interest rate announcement, inflation report or GDP I open my charts and start drawing technical channels. A technical channel is an area between support and resistance where price has been contained for some time. I look at 4 hour charts to see the highest and lowest points in them. The highest point would be the upper part of the channel and the lowest point would be the lower part of the channel. When I find out those points I put 2 trendlines: one on the upper part of the channel and one on the lower part of the channel.

When there are about 5 minutes left for the announcement to be released I place one buy stop order above the upper channel ( 5 pips above it) and one sell stop order below the lower channel (5 pips below it). When the news is released it usually creates huge moves and prices start going up or down. If a currency pair jumps up, my buy order is triggered, if they start moving down, my sell order is activated. When one of the orders is opened I remove the other order and just go with the market wherever it goes: up or down. I also try to move my stop bit by bit in order to preserve the profits that I already have. When the move is over and the market cools down I either close my position myself, or allow the market to close it by moving my stop loss as close to the price as possible. In this way I trade the news at least twice a week and usually manage to make both trades profitable.

These are just general guidelines to trade news in forex. As trading is a risky business I recommend practicing your trading skills on a demo account before risking your real money. You should always remember not to risk more than you can afford to lose. Good luck in trading.