For new traders, your economic calendar is the first stop for guidance about market news and how it could affect the prices of currencies and other tradeable instruments.

As there are so many different trading strategies out there, it’s important to identify the factors and economic indicators that are important to your own strategy. For example, if you’re a scalper who aims to gain a few pips from many small trades throughout the day but aren’t aware of a large economic release that will happen that day, it has the potential to decimate your account and render all of your hard work negligible.