The biggest and most obvious part of fundamental analysis is trading economic data releases, or more simply as traders call it: News trading. So that everyone in the market has a level playing field when it comes to market sensitive news, each economic data release has a set time and date that it must be released. This means that at this particular time EVERYONE is watching and trading that particular forex market. All this attention leads to volatile market conditions as everyone tries to outwit each other in the race to best position themselves. There are literally hundreds of economic data releases every single day. Think about it. Every single country in the world releasing data such as unemployment, retail sales, GDP, trade balance. The list goes on forever. But just because a piece of economic data is released, doesn’t mean that it is relevant to you and your trade! The Vantage FX economic calendar allows you to filter news releases by both country and expected market impact, making sure you’re only focusing on the news that is most relevant to you and your particular forex trade. If you are trading EUR/USD, then the GDP of South Africa contracting shouldn’t really have too much of an effect on either the Euro or the US Dollar, should it? Of course not. But on the other hand, a big and unexpected drop in the tier 1 US unemployment rate could have catastrophic effects on not only USD forex pairs, but across the entire forex market. This is because the US economy is still the biggest and weakness at the top of today’s interconnected world so easily sends shockwaves through the entire world. Do you remember the GFC?