News times, weekend gaps and rollover
Lesson 11 · about 10 min
Three fixed points on the clock cause a disproportionate share of beginner losses: scheduled news, the weekend close, and the daily rollover at 5pm New York. Each is predictable to the minute, which means each can be planned for.
Scheduled news
Economic data is released on a published schedule, and the important releases move price within a second of the timestamp. The times that matter most for the majors:
| Release (examples) | Currency | Local time | Eastern Time (winter) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian employment, RBA decision | AUD | 11:30 / 14:30 AEDT | 19:30 / 22:30 (prev. day) |
| Japan CPI, BoJ decision | JPY | 08:30 / around noon JST | 18:30 / around 22:00 to 23:00 (prev. day) |
| UK CPI, GDP, employment | GBP | 07:00 London | 02:00 |
| Eurozone CPI, PMIs | EUR | 10:00 / 09:00 CET | 04:00 / 03:00 |
| Bank of England decision | GBP | 12:00 London | 07:00 |
| ECB decision and press conference | EUR | 14:15 / 14:45 CET | 08:15 / 08:45 |
| US CPI, NFP, retail sales, GDP | USD | 08:30 ET | 08:30 |
| Canada employment, CPI, BoC decision | CAD | 08:30 / 09:45 ET | 08:30 / 09:45 |
| US ISM, consumer sentiment | USD | 10:00 ET | 10:00 |
| FOMC decision / press conference | USD | 14:00 / 14:30 ET | 14:00 / 14:30 |
What happens in the seconds around a major release:
- Spreads widen, often from under 1 pip to 5, 10 or more, because LPs pull their quotes.
- Price can jump 30 to 100 pips in either direction with no trades in between.
- Stops fill with slippage, because there was no price where you placed the stop.
- Limit orders may not fill, because price gapped through them.
None of that is broker misbehaviour; it is what a dealer market does when nobody wants to quote. Module 5 covers how to interpret the releases. For now, the practical rule for a beginner is to be flat, or to have a stop already in place, for at least a minute either side of red-calendar events on the currencies you hold, and to accept that the stop may not fill where it sits.
An economic calendar with a filter for "high impact" on your currencies is the one piece of external information every FX trader needs open.
Weekend gaps
The market closes at 17:00 ET on Friday and reopens around 17:00 ET on Sunday (early Monday in Sydney). Anything that happens in the 48 hours in between (elections, central bank emergency action, a geopolitical shock, a weekend speech) is priced instantly at the Sunday open.
Most weekends the gap is a few pips and closes within the Asian session. Occasionally it is not:
| Situation | Example gap on a major |
|---|---|
| Normal weekend | 0 to 10 pips |
| Surprise political news | 50 to 150 pips |
| Emergency policy action or a crisis | 200 to 1,000+ pips |
A stop does not protect you from a gap. If you are long GBP/USD with a stop 30 pips below and the pair opens 150 pips lower, you are filled at the open, 150 pips down, not 30. The risk management course treats this under position caps; in FX specifically, the choices are to close before the weekend, to size for a gap rather than for the stop, or to accept the risk knowingly. Negative balance protection (Module 4) is what stops a large gap from turning a losing account into a debt.
Rollover at 5pm ET
Spot FX settles T+2, so a position held past the end of the trading day is "rolled" to the next value date. The retail version of this happens at 17:00 ET, which is defined as the end of the FX day worldwide:
- The daily candle closes. On most platforms the daily bar runs from 17:00 ET to 17:00 ET. Some brokers use midnight server time instead; check, because it changes what a "daily chart" looks like.
- Swap is charged or credited on every open position (Module 4). Positions open at 17:00:00 ET pay; positions closed at 16:59:59 do not.
- Liquidity vanishes for a few minutes. Banks are re-marking their books, and many LPs stop quoting. Spreads on EUR/USD can widen from 0.5 to 5 or 10 pips for a short period.
The widening around rollover is a well-known trap. A stop placed 8 pips from price can be hit at 17:01 ET by the spread alone, with the market going nowhere. Then the spread normalises and price is exactly where it was.
Two simple defences: do not open trades in the 16:45 to 17:15 ET window, and if a trade is open with a tight stop, know that rollover may take it out.
Key idea: News, the weekend and the daily rollover are the three moments when the price you see stops being a price you can trade at. They are scheduled. Being flat, or being sized for a gap, is a choice you can make in advance.
Putting it on the calendar
A beginner's weekly routine:
- Sunday evening: check for weekend news; note the open versus Friday's close.
- Each morning: filter the economic calendar for high-impact events on your currencies. Write the times into your plan.
- Before 08:30 ET: know what is being released and whether you want to hold through it.
- 16:45 ET: decide about overnight positions; note the rollover.
- Friday afternoon: decide about weekend positions.
Try it: Pull the last four NFP releases (first Friday of each month, 08:30 ET). On a one-minute chart of EUR/USD, measure the high-to-low range of the 08:30 candle and the widest spread your platform recorded (or estimate from bid and ask if history is available). Write down the largest of each. That is the size of stop and the size of spread your plan needs to survive if you are ever in a trade at 08:30.
Recap
- Major releases land at fixed times (US data 08:30 ET, FOMC 14:00 ET, ECB 14:15 CET, BoE 12:00 London); spreads widen and price gaps around them.
- Stops fill with slippage during news; limit orders may not fill at all.
- The weekend close is a 48-hour gap risk that a stop cannot cover; size for the gap or be flat.
- Rollover at 17:00 ET closes the daily candle, charges swap and briefly drains liquidity.
- Avoid opening trades near 17:00 ET and keep a high-impact calendar open every day.
See it drawn
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.