How Traders Can Stay Up to Date on Market Events? Use Forex Calendar, Financial News, Trading Communities
As a trader, being aware of current events that could impact the markets is crucial. Economic data releases, political developments, and industry news can all influence the prices of securities you're trading. Staying informed allows you to make well-timed and educated trading decisions. Here are some tips for traders to remain up-to-date on happenings that may move the markets.
Use a Forex Calendar
One of the most powerful tools for traders is a forex calendar. This displays an economic calendar with scheduled releases of market-moving data like GDP, employment, inflation, and consumer spending reports. Top forex calendars let you filter by country, importance, and even display countdowns to key events.
Many forex calendars are free, but some of them have paid versions that provide additional features like historical data, projections, analysis, and alert notifications.
Set up alerts on your forex calendar to notify you ahead of major releases. This allows you to prepare by analyzing the current forecasts and pricing in the data. Having this real-time information at your fingertips is invaluable for forex and global equities traders.
Monitor Financial News Sources
Subscribing to reputable financial news sources is a must for active traders and investors. Outlets like Bloomberg, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and Yahoo Finance provide continuous coverage of market-moving events across all asset classes.
Many of these sources offer free news apps and email newsletters delivering the latest headlines directly to your phone and inbox. You can also create news alerts for your portfolio holdings or specific markets you trade.
Following expert market analysts on Twitter is another way to rapidly see new developments. Just be aware of potential rumors and ensure you verify news from credible primary sources before acting on it.
Check Corporate Communication Channels
If you trade individual stocks or bonds, it's wise to follow the communication channels of those companies. This includes monitoring press releases, investor relations websites, quarterly earnings calls, CEO interviews, and company social media accounts.
Public companies are required to disclose material information that may impact their share prices. Staying up-to-date on corporate announcements regarding earnings, acquisitions, leadership changes, product releases, and more can prevent you from being blindsided by these events.
Many investor relations websites also provide EDGAR filings, transcripts of earnings calls, investor presentations, and forward-looking guidance from executive teams.
Use Trading Platform News Feeds
Most modern trading platforms incorporate real-time news feeds and research directly into the user interface. This news is carefully filtered to only include material market information relevant to the assets and securities you're watching or have invested in.
Having this customized news feed streaming live within your trading terminal makes it easy to keep an eye on developments without having to browse various other sources. You can also receive push notifications for breaking news that meets certain criteria you set.
Top multi-asset trading platforms with embedded news feeds include eToro, TD Ameritrade, TradeStation, NinjaTrader, MetaTrader, Interactive Brokers Trader Workstation, and Fidelity Active Trader Pro.
Join Trading Communities
There's immense value in being part of an active trading community, whether online forums like Reddit's /r/stocks and /r/forex, Discord trading servers, Telegram channels, or local investment clubs. Members discuss recent events, share news, and alert each other to updates that may impact their holdings.
While you always want to verify information from reliable sources, being part of these social trading networks can rapidly bring new developments to your attention that you may have otherwise missed. These communities can serve as another set of eyes on the markets.
You'll also likely find experienced traders in these groups who enjoy sharing their deep market knowledge and analyzing current events from different perspectives.
Use Screening Tools and Market Scanners
Many financial data platforms provide market screening and scanning tools to filter for stocks, ETFs, forex pairs, and other assets experiencing unusual price movements or activity. These scanners can detect high volatility, abnormal volume, large price swings, and other anomalies that may signal an event impact.
If you see an asset you hold triggering one of these volatility filters, it should raise a red flag to quickly investigate the cause. Screening tools allow you to easily monitor hundreds or thousands of assets simultaneously for unusual behavior resulting from breaking news or data releases.
Popular multi-asset scanning tools include FinViz, TradingView, TrendSpider, Scanz, and TC2000. Your broker may also provide complimentary screening for equities, futures, and forex through its trading platform.
Schedule Time to Review News and Events
In our busy world, it can be difficult to carve out dedicated time each day to review news and market events that are relevant to your trading. However, this is an essential practice for consistently profitable traders.
One approach is to block off time before the trading session opens to check your news feeds, calendar, and other information sources. This allows you to begin each day informed on the key events that may drive volatility and price action.
Towards the market close, take another review period to understand what news or data was released during the trading session. This provides perspective on events that moved prices throughout the day and prepares you for potential follow-through into future trading sessions.
Consistently analyzing market catalysts that occurred will deepen your market awareness and ability to anticipate how future events may impact prices.