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You can potentially make a very good living from trading the various different currency pairs. However if you are actively trading throughout the day, then you should make sure that you are aware of any economic data releases that are scheduled for any given day. This is because some of these data releases can really move the markets.

The last thing you want to do is to spend ages waiting for an excellent trading opportunity only to enter a position and then watch in horror as the markets suddenly fly around all over the place after the latest economic figures are announced. These items of news will not only render your technical analysis completely pointless, but they will often be responsible for moving the price sufficiently enough to take out any stop losses you may have placed as well. Similarly you should avoid those forex strategies that create most of their set-ups around these times as well.

So if you are serious about making money from currency trading, it’s imperative that you refer to an economic calendar at the start of each day to check if there are any market-moving announcements scheduled. Not all of them will have a major impact on the markets but the ones to really look out for are the non-farm payroll report and any interest rate decisions.

You should avoid having any positions open around these times because the markets will often be highly volatile in the minutes following one of these announcements. On a similar vein it’s worth stating that other announcements can have just as much of an impact if they are particularly surprising, ie significantly above or below analyst expectations.

For most traders these announcements aren’t that much of a factor because they will often trade around them, but you should still pay close attention to them to make sure that you’re not caught unawares after suddenly noticing the markets swinging wildly all over the place shortly afterwards.