How to Use the Forex Factory Calendar in 2025

Today I’m going to show you exactly how to use the Forex Factory calendar to improve your trading.

Plus, I’ll share one of my favorite trading strategies to use following news events. It’s a strategy I’ve used for over a decade and still works amazingly well today!

So if you want to learn how to use the best Forex calendar on the web and profit from news events, you’ll love this guide.

Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Navigate to the Forex Factory Economic Calendar

The very first thing you want to do is navigate to the Forex Factory calendar. Once there, you should be presented with a screen similar to the one below.

Don’t be intimidated by all the activity on this page. By the end of the tutorial, it will all make sense.

Next, we will begin configuring the Forex calendar so that you can get the most out of it.

Step 2: Configure Your Time Zone

Now that you’re on the calendar tab, you want to set your time zone. To do this, simply click the time stamp in the upper right-hand corner.

After clicking the time stamp, you will be taken to a page where you can set your time zone. This will synchronize the time for each news event with your local time.

Don’t skip this step! If you do, it’ll be incredibly difficult to determine when these events are starting.

At this point, you also have the option to turn Daylight Saving Time (DST) on or off.

Lastly, you can toggle the time format to show either am/pm or 24-hour “military time.”

Once you are happy with the settings, click “Save Settings” to save yourself the trouble of doing this each time. One of my favorite features of the Forex Factory calendar is its ability to sync with your time zone.

After saving your settings, you should see the correct time displayed in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

If not, repeat step 2 to ensure your settings were saved correctly.

Step 3: Set the Forex Factory Calendar Event Filter

At this point, you should have the Forex Factory economic calendar in front of you with each news event synchronized with your local time. 

Next, we will set the event filter to determine the type of news and currencies to display. This is convenient if you only want to display certain news events or are interested in specific currency pairs.

To set the filter, click the “Filter” icon in the upper right-hand corner while on the calendar tab.

After clicking “Filter”, you will get a screen like the one below.

This screen gives you the ability to filter events by expected impact, event type, and currency.

Pro Tip: Hover your mouse over the colored boxes under “Expected Impact” to get an explanation of each one. In short, red equals high-impact, orange is medium-impact, and yellow represents low-impact news.

I like to focus on the medium and high-impact news events. This gives me a complete picture of what to expect over the coming days without cluttering the Forex Factory calendar with news that will have little impact on the markets.

Once you have everything set the way you want, click “Apply Filter” to begin showing only the events and currencies you selected. You can change this any time by repeating this step.

Step 4: Select Your Desired Dates

You should now have your time zone set and your filter configured the way you want.

Now it’s time to select the desired time frame. 

This is the span of time that will be shown on the calendar.

The navigation pane you see below will allow you to set any time frame you desire.

From this window, you can choose a single day, a week or even the entire month.

Also note that you can quickly select predetermined time frames in the bottom half of the navigation pane.

Pro Tip: Choosing to see the entire week is often the best approach when trading the higher time frames. This allows you to prepare for the next few days rather than just the next 24 hours.

Step 5: Check the Forex Factory Event Details

In addition to seeing the “surface content” such as the event name, expected impact and scheduled time, you can also expand each event to see additional information.

Be sure to use this feature with caution.

It can be far too easy to get caught up in the nuances of each event.

As price action traders, we need to be more concerned about what’s happening on the chart and less concerned about the fundamental significance of news.

The image below illustrates how you can expand the details of a given news event.

Once the icon above is clicked, you will see additional details of the Forex news event.

From the screen above, you can see additional details such as the source, frequency and history of the event to name a few.

To close this window, simply click the “X” shown in the image above.

Before we move on, I want to reiterate how important it is to use these additional details sparingly, if at all.

The advantage to using the Forex Factory calendar as a technical trader lies in the scheduled time and expected impact of the news.

Anything more than that, and using a news calendar can become more of a distraction than an asset.

Choosing the Forex Factory Calendar Events to Watch

Knowing how to set up the Forex Factory calendar is one thing; knowing how to use it properly is quite another.

The first thing to understand is that you only want to focus on the market-moving events.

This means setting the filter to include only the medium and high-impact news events.

By doing this, you don’t have to sift through the low-impact news to find the events that are likely to cause increased volatility.

Here are some high-impact events to watch for:

• Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)
• Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP)
• Unemployment rates
• Final Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
• Monetary policy announcements
• Any central bank rate decisions

The above list is an excellent baseline for you. Trading around these news events will help keep you out of trouble, but the list isn’t so exhaustive that you can’t find time to safely trade.

How to Trade Using the Forex Factory Calendar

We want to use the Forex Factory calendar to anticipate market-moving news and thereby avoid or prepare for periods of high volatility.

As such, I want to run through a few basic rules when it comes to trading around the news. All of the scenarios below assume that the news event in question would hypothetically impact your trade.

No open positions ahead of a news event

This is obviously the safest place to be with major news around the corner. You have nothing at risk, and you get to objectively analyze the price action that forms as a result of the news.

But what if the news isn’t just around the corner? How much time is needed between putting on a new position and a scheduled news event that could adversely affect that position?

This is a hard question to answer as it depends on a few factors.

• The trader – Every trader is different and, therefore, has different requirements regarding how risk-averse they are.
• The time frame – On average, a trade on the 1-hour chart will require less time between the entry and the pending news than a trade on the daily time frame.
• Distance to take profit – A trade with a 50 pip profit target will require less time than a trade with a 300 pip target, hypothetically speaking, of course.

As a general rule, I don’t like to place trades within 24 hours of high-impact news.

Open position – small profit

This scenario involves an open position that is in profit but could turn negative if the news event adversely affects the position.

We’ve all been there – that point of indecision before a major news event is about to hit. Should you close the trade and book a small profit to be safe?

But then, what if the market moves in favor of your position? If you close it now, you risk missing out on potential profits.

In my experience, most traders fear a missed opportunity more than they fear losing capital. This couldn’t be more wrong. Remember, your number one job as a trader is capital preservation! Making money always comes second.

The path I choose 95% of the time in this situation is to take my small profit and get out. I can always get back in later if the market presents a favorable opportunity.

When in doubt, get out!

Open position – large profit

Of course, the last scenario we’re going to discuss is the second safest place to be after not having an open position. When a high-impact news event is around the corner and you have a position that is well into profit, you have more options.

It’s much easier to ride out a major news event if you know your position is 200 pips in the money. One thing that can influence your decision here is how far away your trade is from its profit target.

Let’s assume this position initially targeted a profit of 300 pips and is now just 40 pips from that target. In this case, I would likely close the trade before the news event to book profits.

To risk giving back 260 pips for an additional 40 pips isn’t very appealing.

You can also take a partial profit before the news event, leaving the remaining position open if the market reaches your final target. This is certainly a viable option, and one I choose often.

Frequently Asked Questions