Economic Calendar for Binary Options Trading

One of the most powerful binary options trading strategies is trading the news, also called fundamental analysis trading. For fundamental traders, the most important trading tool is the binary options economic calendar. The calendar shows when there will be important macroeconomic news that may affect asset prices. And if you can predict in which direction asset prices are going to move, you can make a good profit with your binary options.

The way this works is as follows. From time to time governments, central banks, or other important actors in the political-economical spectrum release macroeconomic information. This information gives investors a clue about the direction an economy is heading. That in turn affects prices of currencies, commodities, market indices, and sometimes stocks. Generally speaking, positive news is good for a country's currency and stock market index, and leads to a price increase. Negative news is bad, and leads to a price decrease.

Using the economic calendar

The economic calendar below displays all the important economic news events, both past and upcoming. An event can be the release of macroeconomic data, a decision by a central bank, a speech by a minister of finance, or anything else that is expected to significantly affect prices on the financial markets. Usually the event is quantified as a number. For example, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) interest rate decision is expressed as an interest percentage. But sometimes the news cannot be expressed as a number, and you'll have to decide whether it's good or bad news based on qualitative analysis.

The economic calendar has several columns. Each column provides a piece of information that helps you set up your binary trades. The columns are:

Time: The time at which the economic news will be released. All times are listed as local times for Sydney/Melbourne/Canberra (UTC+10).
Cur.: The country and/or currency that will be affected by the news.
Imp.: The importance of the event for the volatility of the affected currency. One bullshead means low volatility; two bullsheads mean moderate volatility; three bullsheads mean high volatility.
Event: The name of the event or economic indicator to be released.
Actual: The value of the economic indicator announced in the news. Note that this column only gets filled after the news has been reported.
Forecast: The expected value of the economic indicator before it has been announced.
Previous: The value of the economic indicator last time it was announced.