Rules for trading during macroeconomic news releases differ depending on whether you are participating in the Evaluation Process or already trading on an FTMO Account.

FTMO Challenge: 1-Step

Within the FTMO Challenge: 1-Step, you may trade freely during all macroeconomic news releases without any restrictions. After successfully meeting the conditions of the FTMO Challenge: 1-Step and transitioning to an FTMO Account, the standard rules for trading during selected macroeconomic news releases apply, as described below.

FTMO Challenge: 2-Step

Within the FTMO Challenge: 2-Step (including FTMO Challenge and Verification), you may trade freely during all macroeconomic news releases without any restrictions. After successfully meeting the conditions of the FTMO Challenge: 2-Step and transitioning to an FTMO Account, the standard rules for trading during selected macroeconomic news releases apply, as described below.

FTMO Account

FTMO Traders trading on an FTMO Account must comply with the following restrictions when trading during selected macroeconomic news releases. An exception applies only to Swing accounts, which are available exclusively to traders who qualified through the FTMO Challenge: 2-Step.

On the targeted instruments, it is not permitted to open or close any trades, including pending orders (such as Stop Loss or Take Profit), within a time window starting 2 minutes before and ending 2 minutes afterthe release of selected macroeconomic news announcements. Activating or closing pending orders is also considered as opening or closing a trade.

You are allowed to hold open positions on the targeted instruments if they were opened more than 2 minutes before the restricted macroeconomic event. Please note that if a Stop Loss or Take Profit is triggered within the restricted time window, this may be considered a breach of the FTMO Account Agreement.

Trading on non-targeted instruments is not restricted. For example, during the US NFP release, you may trade EURGBP or AUDNZD; however, you must not open or close trades on USDJPY or GBPUSD within the time window of 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after the NFP release.

Affected Instrument	Macroeconomic Announcement
USD (related to Forex + Gold + US Indices +DXY)	Federal Funds Rate & Statement Non-Farm Employment Change Unemployment Rate& Wages Advance GDP q/q FOMC Meeting Minutes CPI y/y
EUR (related to Forex only)	Main Refinancing Rate
GBP (related to Forex only)	Official Bank Rate & MPC Votes CPI y/y
CAD (related to Forex only)	Overnight Rate/BOC Rate Statement CPI m/m Employment Change/Unemployment Rate
AUD (related to Forex only)	Cash Rate & RBA Statement Employment Change/Unemployment Rate CPI q/q GDP q/q
NZD (related to Forex only)	Official Cash Rate & RBNZ Rate Statement Employment Change/Unemployment Rate CPI q/q GDP q/q
CHF (related to Forex only)	SNB Policy Rate
Other Instruments	Announcement
Crude Oil (UKOIL.cash, USOIL.cash)	Crude Oil Inventories

The news releases schedule can also be monitored in our Economic Calendar, where these restricted events are marked by a red background fill:

Please note again that the above restrictions do not apply to FTMO Challenge or Verification accounts. Also, these restrictions don’t apply to FTMO Traders having the account type set to FTMO Account Swing. Unlike the FTMO Account, the FTMO Account Swing does not have restrictions for news trading nor holding trades over the weekend.

For news announcements affecting USD, the restriction applies for Forex pairs with USD currency involved, just as for any of the offered Indices, namely US30.cash, US100.cash, US500.cash, US2000.cash.