# How to Create a News Trading Plan

> A step-by-step guide to building a news trading plan for high-impact economic events. How to prepare, manage risk, and journal news trades effectively.

**URL:** https://traderjournal.app/trading-plans/how-to-create-news-trading-plan

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# How to Create a News Trading Plan

Trading economic news events is a specific skill. Without a plan, news trades are gambling. With a plan, they can be a defined part of your strategy.

## Decide: Trade Through, Avoid, or Fade

Before any news event, decide your approach:

**Trade through:** You have open positions and will hold them through the release. Requires wider stops and acceptance of spike risk.

**Avoid:** You close existing positions before the release and take no new trades until volatility settles. Most suitable approach for most retail traders.

**Fade the spike:** You wait for the initial spike after the release and trade the reversal. High skill required — most spikes do not reverse immediately.

For beginners: default to **avoid** until you have at least 20 news trades in your journal to analyze.

## Pre-News Checklist (30 minutes before release)

- [ ] Event time confirmed (your timezone)
- [ ] Previous reading and forecast noted
- [ ] Expected market reaction noted (consensus: what happens if beat vs miss?)
- [ ] Open positions: will they survive a spike to your known liquidity levels?
- [ ] Decision: Trade / Avoid / Fade — documented in Trader Journal pre-trade plan

## What to Log for News Trades

```
News event: [e.g., US NFP]
Expected: [forecast number]
Actual: [released number]
Beat / Miss / Inline
Initial spike direction: Up / Down
Spike size (pips): [number]
Reversal after spike: Yes / No (time to reversal)
My approach: Trade through / Avoided / Faded
Entry (if traded): [price]
Entry timing: At spike / 5 min after / 15 min after
Result: Win / Loss / BE
```

Tags: `nfp`, `cpi`, `fomc`, `news-fade`, `news-trade`, `news-avoid`

## Post-News Analysis

After every major news event (whether you traded or not), log in notes:
- What the market did (confirmed your bias? reversed your bias?)
- Whether your plan was the right call
- What you would do differently

## Building a News Performance Database

After 20 news events tracked, compare:
- Trade-through performance vs faded vs avoided (in terms of weekly P&L)
- Which events produce the cleanest directional moves vs chaotic reversals
- Whether NFP is better to avoid vs FOMC for your pairs

## Summary

News trading without a plan is the most common source of large one-day losses for retail traders. Even if your plan is simply "avoid all high-impact news," having that documented and followed consistently is far better than reactive decision-making in the moment.