What the rule prohibits
A typical restriction bans opening or closing a position within a window either side of a high-impact release — commonly two minutes before and after, sometimes five. Some firms extend it to any position in the affected instrument; others apply it only to new entries.
The critical distinction is between trading in the window and holding through it. Most firms permit holding a position opened well beforehand. A minority prohibit having exposure at all, which is a far stricter rule and one that can breach you on a swing position you opened yesterday.
The three variants
| Variant | What is banned | Who it affects |
|---|---|---|
| Entry only | Opening a new position inside the window | Almost nobody by accident. The mildest form. |
| Entry and exit | Any fill inside the window, including stops and targets | Anyone with resting orders. This is where accidental breaches happen. |
| No exposure | Holding any position in the instrument across the release | Swing traders, and anyone who forgot a small runner from Tuesday. |
Establish which one applies before you place a single order, and note it with the firm's other measurement details. The wording that signals the strictest version is usually "may not hold positions during" rather than "may not trade during", and the difference is one word carrying an entire trading style.
Why firms impose it
Spreads widen and slippage becomes unpredictable around releases, and a firm hedging its exposure cannot fill reliably at the price you were shown. There is also a strategy consideration: straddling a release is a coin flip with an asymmetric payoff for the firm, which pays out on the win and absorbs the loss.
Whether you find that reasonable is beside the point. It is common, it is enforced, and unlike a drawdown it costs the firm nothing to enforce retrospectively — which is exactly why it so often is.
Which events count, and on whose calendar
"High impact" is not a judgement call — firms point at a specific economic calendar and a specific impact rating. Find out which calendar, because the ratings differ between providers, and a release marked medium on one is red on another.
The usual list is non-farm payrolls, CPI, central bank rate decisions and GDP, but it commonly extends to central bank speeches, meeting minutes, PMI and employment data. Some firms publish their own list, which is the best case because it is unambiguous.
Two details people miss. The calendar's times are usually shown in its own time zone, which shifts with daylight saving at different dates from your own. And if you trade indices or metals rather than currencies, check whether the restriction covers instruments correlated with the release or only the direct pair — a US CPI print moves the S&P far more reliably than it moves some USD crosses, and firms differ on whether that counts.
The resting order trap
This is the version that catches careful traders, so it deserves its own heading.
If the restriction covers closing as well as opening, then a stop loss that triggers during the release is a trade closed inside the window. You did not press anything. You were not at the screen. The timestamp says otherwise, and the timestamp is what the review reads.
The same applies to take-profit orders, trailing stops that convert to market orders, and any bracket left attached to a position you thought was finished. On an entry-and-exit firm, the only safe state going into a window is flat, with no working orders.
The alternative — pulling stops before a release so they cannot fill — is far worse. That leaves an unprotected position into the most volatile minute of the day, and on an equity-measured account the excursion alone can breach the daily loss limit without any fill at all. If you cannot be flat, take the smaller breach risk over the larger market risk, and expect to explain it.
How breaches are found
Almost never by the platform blocking the order. The restriction is typically checked afterwards, during a payout review, by comparing your trade timestamps against the calendar. That means you can trade for weeks in breach without knowing, and discover it when the money is due.
This is the same late-enforcement pattern as the consistency rule, and it deserves the same response: know the exact rule before you rely on the profit, because the enforcement point is the moment you have most to lose.
Consequences vary. The common outcome is that the offending trade is voided and its profit removed, which is survivable. A repeated pattern is treated as a violation of the agreement, and a few firms treat any single instance as grounds to close the account — that is a term worth reading rather than assuming.
Trading around it
- Open the firm's chosen calendar before the session and mark the windows on the chart, not in your head.
- Use a five-minute buffer either side even where the rule says two, which covers clock differences between the calendar, the platform and the firm's audit.
- Be flat with no working orders going into a window at any firm whose rule covers exits.
- Check the whole day, not just your session. A rate decision in another region can land during your quiet afternoon.
- Reconcile weekly. Compare your fills against the calendar once a week, so that if you are in breach you find out before the payout review does.
If news is your edge
Then this rule chooses your firm, and it should be the first field you filter on rather than the last.
A minority of firms permit news trading fully on funded accounts, and that permission is worth more to you than a better split or a cheaper fee — it is the difference between a strategy you can run and one you cannot. It is a documented field on our firm comparison for exactly that reason.
Do not plan to trade news quietly at a firm that prohibits it. The timestamps are in the account history, the review reads them, and the profit from those trades is the first thing removed. It is the one category of rule where the enforcement is genuinely reliable, because it costs the firm nothing and requires no judgement.
Questions to confirm in writing
- Which calendar and which impact rating define a restricted event?
- Is the window two minutes or five, and is it symmetric either side?
- Does it cover entries only, entries and exits, or any open exposure?
- Does it apply to correlated instruments or only the directly affected one?
- Does it apply in the evaluation, on the funded account, or both?
- What is the consequence — voided trade, voided profit, or a closed account?
Six answers, kept as a written reply. It is the same discipline that runs through prohibited strategies, and for the same reason: rules enforced after the fact are only safe when you have the firm's own words about what they mean.