News Study

Effective News Events Study

The Effective News Events Study displays upcoming high-impact economic news releases directly on your chart, helping traders avoid volatile periods or identify potential trading opportunities around scheduled events. This study provides visual indicators for Low, Medium, and High severity news events across multiple currencies.

Why News Event Data Matters for Backtesting

Accurate news event data is critical for effective backtesting of both manual and automated trading setups. Without proper news event tracking, backtests can produce misleading results by:

  • Including trades taken during high-volatility news releases that you would avoid in live trading
  • Failing to account for abnormal price behavior during major economic announcements
  • Overstating strategy profitability by including unrealistic trading conditions
  • Missing the impact of NO_TRADE days when institutional activity is significantly altered

By incorporating news event data into your backtesting process, you can create more realistic performance metrics that accurately reflect how your strategy would perform under actual trading conditions.

Date Coverage

This study includes comprehensive news event data spanning October 1, 2024 through September 12, 2025, covering all major economic releases for supported currencies during this period.

Quick Navigation

Settings

MaxBarsApplyStudy

Default: 10000

Determines how many bars back from the most recent bar the study will analyze. Decrease this value if chart performance becomes slow. This optimization prevents unnecessary processing of historical data when only recent news events are relevant for current trading decisions.

Minutes Before News Event

Default: 60 minutes

Sets the time window before a scheduled news event when the visual indicator will activate on your chart. This advance warning allows traders to prepare for potential volatility or exit positions before the news release.

Minutes After News Event

Default: 5 minutes

Determines how long after the scheduled news event time the visual indicator remains active. This buffer accounts for delayed market reactions and the immediate volatility following major economic announcements.

News Line 1

Options: None, Misc, USD, EUR Default: USD

Selects which currency’s news events will display on the first visual line. Select “None” to disable this line completely. This allows traders to monitor news events for their primary trading instrument.

News Line 2

Options: None, Misc, USD, EUR Default: EUR

Selects which currency’s news events will display on the second visual line. Select “None” to disable this line completely. Both lines can display the same currency if desired, allowing for different visualization configurations.

Subgraphs

The study creates six subgraphs organized by severity level and line number. Each subgraph displays as a horizontal line (line width: 6) during active news event windows.

Low Severity Events (Green)

Line 1 (Currency) Low Line 2 (Currency) Low

Low-impact news events that typically cause minimal market volatility. These events are tracked for completeness but usually don’t require trading adjustments for most strategies.

Medium Severity Events (Yellow)

Line 1 (Currency) Medium Line 2 (Currency) Medium

Medium-impact news events that can cause noticeable price movement and increased volatility. Conservative traders may choose to avoid trading during these windows, while others may adjust position sizing or tighten stops.

High Severity Events (Red)

Line 1 (Currency) High Line 2 (Currency) High

High-impact news events that typically cause significant market volatility and price swings. These events often include:

  • Federal Funds Rate decisions
  • ECB rate decisions
  • Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP)
  • Major GDP releases
  • Central bank policy announcements

Most systematic traders avoid trading during high-severity news windows due to unpredictable price behavior and widened spreads.

Understanding NO_TRADE Days

What are NO_TRADE Days?

NO_TRADE days represent full trading days when significant scheduled events create abnormal market conditions that make reliable trading analysis impossible. When a day is marked as NO_TRADE for a specific currency, the entire 24-hour period is highlighted by the study.

These are not recommendations but rather data points indicating when major institutional activity and market structure differ significantly from normal trading conditions.

Events That Trigger NO_TRADE Status

Based on historical market behavior, the following event types mark entire days as NO_TRADE for their respective currencies:

Central Bank Rate Decisions:

  • ECB Refinancing Rate decisions (EUR)
  • Federal Funds Rate decisions (USD)

Major Political Events:

  • USD elections and major votes

Important Notes:

  • If a currency already has a NO_TRADE designation for a specific day, additional news events for that currency on that day are not separately listed
  • Once a day is marked NO_TRADE, traders should consider the entire session as having altered market conditions

Excluded Events

The following event types are intentionally excluded from the news event database as they typically have minimal impact on price action:

  • Bond Auction events
  • Natural Gas inventory reports
  • Crude Oil Inventories

Currency Support

The study currently supports news events for three currency groups:

Misc - Miscellaneous events that may affect multiple currencies or cross-asset correlations

USD - United States Dollar events, including:

  • Federal Reserve announcements
  • US employment data (NFP, ADP, Jobless Claims)
  • US inflation data (CPI, PPI)
  • US GDP releases
  • FOMC minutes and speeches

EUR - Euro events, including:

  • European Central Bank announcements
  • Eurozone inflation data
  • Eurozone GDP releases
  • ECB minutes and speeches

Additional currencies may be added in future updates based on user demand.

Technical Requirements

Chicago Timezone Requirement

This study requires your Sierra Chart to be configured with Chicago timezone for accurate news event timing.

Required timezone setting: CST-06CDT+01,M3.2.0/02:00,M11.1.0/02:00

If your chart uses a different timezone, the study will display an error message in the Message Log and will not function. This requirement ensures news event times align correctly with chart bars regardless of your local system timezone.

Study Permission

This study requires proper user authorization. If you encounter “You are not allowed to use this study” messages, please verify your Effective Studies registration status.