How macroeconomic data can be useful in financial betting on FinBet
Betting on financial instruments (crypto, forex or stocks) is based on the preferences and skills of bettors. In this article, we discuss why and how macroeconomic data can and should be used to yield profit. We show which events to choose, where to find the data and how to apply it in setting bets.
Many newcomers to the financial betting platforms face a problem: when to start? How to choose the right moment for setting the first bet? Initially, they are not yet familiar with technical analysis which would definitely help to identify a trend or support line. This hesitancy changes in time, as new skills appear, experience accrues and fluency in applying various useful functions of the betting platform kicks in.
One of the ways to avoid this freshman’s hesitancy is to start by setting bets at the moments when the external reality provides price moving stimuli. They can be identified by players themselves but user-friendly platform operators, like FinBet, support them in identifying such market-moving, price changing events. Without recommending how to bet, FinBet provides information indicating why particular upcoming events may constitute an opportunity for profit. What makes such information especially useful is the fact that it points to a specific day and hour when potentially price changing data become public. And using this event to define your UP or DOWN is relatively easy, but still requires a decision. This article will tell you how to get closer to such a decision. It is critically important to learn that because every month there are about 30–40 such publications. And each one of them is a betting opportunity.
Macroeconomic events
Every day various institutions or firms publish macroeconomic data which define the current economic situation of a country they refer to. From the point of view of financial markets, the most important data include inflation rates, interest rates, retail sales or employment changes.
Years ago it was agreed between the data issuers, regulators and market representatives that the data will be released according to a strictly defined calendar with fixed days of the month and an hour. For example, US Nonfarm Payrolls are always published on the first Friday of a month at 12.30 UTC. The reasoning behind such a decision was very simple and practical: since these readings have an impact on the prices of currencies, stocks and exchange indexes — the investors need time to prepare their trading strategy in advance. The second reason is that most of the vital readings are preceded by the publication of forecasts and their authors also need time in advance to prepare them according to schedule.
Economic calendar
The publications of macroeconomic data are very precisely scheduled. A number of websites have put an Economic Calendar to their content. Among the most popular ones are FX Street, Forex Factory or Investing.com. They provide not only the schedule but a lot of useful information about the events, their potential impact on the prices and the history of previous readings. They also display data from the previous month, the forecast and a blank space for the ACTUAL, which is filled automatically in seconds after the reading is released. This is the moment when traders look at the difference between the forecast and actual and the bigger it is (in either direction), the stronger signal for opening trade this release turned out to be. Some investors do not wait till this moment and open their position before the exact hour of publication, some prefer to wait until they see the new ACTUAL. On FinBet, we welcome both groups.
Forecast
Let us start with some basic definitions. Forecasts are sometimes also called consensus. This term in fact better reflects the method in which this expected reading is defined but they mean the same. This is how it works and why forecasts matter so much.
The leading press agencies like Bloomberg or Reuters have a network of cooperating macroeconomic experts working for banks, investment funds or universities. In the week before a scheduled publication, these experts are asked to define their forecasted readings. They send their forecasts to the agency by the end of the week. The press agency collects all these individual forecasts and calculates the median value which is then released as an official FORECAST. As the figure is calculated on the basis of many differing predicted numbers — some call it CONSENSUS. For the sake of clarity, we will continue to use the terms FORECAST, as most market participants use this term as standard.
How should we read forecasts?
Let us take an example; a forecast for Retail Sales, a very vital macroeconomic data in each country. This figure reflects the stability of salaries, consumer sentiment and sometimes also inflation.
Firstly, although forecasts relate to the future they are rooted in the past and the present. In the process of defining possible future reading, each analyst starts with checking the reading from the previous month and confronts it with all the developments in the last weeks helpful in identifying a trend for Retail Sales. All recent related business reports, press releases, interviews of key players are analyzed to look for information that will indicate that the upcoming Retail Sales data will be positive or negative. However, the authors of forecasts must not limit themselves just to defining the direction. They have to predict a level, they have to come up with a number. And since these individual numeric predictions may vary among all the experts involved — the most optimistic and pessimistic predictions are eliminated and the median is calculated to find a middle road.
It is also important that the forecasts are published by the end of the week preceding the publication. This gives the investors time to prepare their strategies and decisions for the upcoming week.
As can be seen in economic calendars, not all macroeconomic announcements are accompanied by forecasts. The reason is very simple. Among a few hundred macroeconomic readings globally, only a group of about 50 have the gravity to move the markets. So it is only for them that the agencies run the forecast definition process.
This is how our trading support will work for you:
- you will be receiving from us in advance information about every market-moving upcoming macroeconomic event, it will not be a dry note — it will be a Betting Opportunity, a post presenting the name of the event, its description which includes the time of release and most importantly with a chart screen form the last release of this data showing how it moved the price of a currency or index. So you do not have to follow the publication you receive tips from us. Just follow our social media
- after the publication we post Impact Reports which show how the price changed right after the release of macroeconomic data, those Reports will be available on our Social media channels. These reports are living proof of how trading on events on FinBet creates an opening for profit
- we will be inviting you to our regular webinars during which we will be presenting new betting openings, introducing you to trading and updating about current or upcoming promotions, bonuses etc.
- webinars will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube for your convenience
- we follow every crucial piece of information about currencies, stock so that you do not have to; once we find out about something critically important — you will be the first to know.
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