The Importance of Using Online Calendars

When trading financial markets like Forex, and stocks, monitoring the important upcoming fundamental indicators can be a defining factor in profits and losses. This is because some of the news can shake the markets and increase volatility leading to losses when trading solely with technical strategies. Because of this, many traders are incorporating some aspects of fundamental analysis into their trading practices. Let’s analyze these fundamentals and the tools that can aid in monitoring major events. 

Corporate Calendar in trading

While calendars are useful for setting important reminders and making yourself more organized, corporate calendars help traders to monitor all important corporate news from one place. The corporate calendar addresses an important challenge for all stock traders to analyze stock markets by staying informed with dividend announcements, earnings calls, and IPOs. These events have a major impact on stock prices and traders can use this information to make educated predictions about possible price trends. 

Dividends announcements

Dividend announcements refer to public statements made by companies on a scheduled basis regarding the payment of dividends to their shareholders. A dividend is like getting earnings on deposit, but in this case, investors get paid for holding the shares of companies. Building a well-diversified dividend-paying stock portfolio is one way to get ready for retirement. 

Depending on the company’s dividend policies, dividend announcements are usually made on a quarterly or annual basis. Dividend announcements will include the amount of the dividend and the date of payment. 

Earnings announcements

Earnings reports are important public releases made by publicly traded companies usually every quarter that show the performance of the company for a specific period, usually a quarter. 

The reports contain information about the company's revenue, earnings, profits, losses, expenses, and other financial metrics. These reports are critical for evaluating if the company’s stock is undervalued or overpriced. 

If the company is a decent company that performs well and its stock becomes undervalued then it could be a good time for buying its stock. Because of its significance, earnings reports are closely watched by investors, experts, and traders and can have a significant impact on stock prices. 

IPOs

Initial Public Offerings are events when the company sells its shares for the first time. This is usually the best time to buy shares of highly-anticipated companies with a high likelihood of future success. Many investors who buy early become very wealthy. Being informed of every upcoming important announcement for IPOs is very important to investors who are targeting high profits. 

Once the IPO is completed the share is traded on a public stock exchange and traders can start speculating on its price. Both investors and market analysts watch IPOs carefully as the demand for new IPOs can show the overall performance of the economy and its tendencies. 

Economic calendar

Another essential fundamental analysis tool that is highly regarded by traders is the economic calendar. The economic calendar provides information about macroeconomic indicators release numbers. Monitoring the economic calendar is critical not to getting caught in increased volatility during the trading process. 

Some traders even use the economic calendar to monitor new information releases and trade the news. But news trading is very risky and requires considerable experience in financial markets. Important macroeconomic indicators to always monitor when trading financial instruments are interest rates, inflation,  NFP, GDP, central bank announcements, and many more. Let’s discuss some of the most important fundamentals that traders need to know.

Inflation and interest rates

Also, they are not the same inflation and interest rates are closely related and they have a tremendous impact on each other. Inflation can lead to higher prices of consumer goods and a worse economic situation as a result. Because of its significant impact on economic performance, central banks should monitor inflation closely. 

One of the main tools in central banks' arsenal for controlling inflation levels is interest rates. Increasing interest rates lowers inflation and vice versa. It has to be mentioned that high inflation leads to stock markets rising and can be considered somewhat beneficial for stock traders and investors. 

Employment figures

One of the most important indicators of economic performance is the employment rate. NFP or  Non-Farm Payrolls is the most important indicator of the US economy that measures the number of people employed in the US economy excluding the farming industry (hence its name), government employees, private households, and non-profit organizations. NFP has a history of constantly shaking Forex markets and causing highly volatile movements. Many traders are using NFP for news trading to profit from huge movements caused by the indicator. 

NFP is released on the first Friday of each month and should be monitored closely by currency traders and other asset managers. NFP impact is usually short-lived and mainly affects intraday traders, but sometimes it can change the market direction. 

Central bank announcements and meetings

Central banks can impact both currency and stock markets when releasing important information about their monetary policies. Their main activities include controlling the money supply, setting interest rates, and regulating the banking system. 

Announcing the changes in monetary policies can drastically affect a country’s currency which has a rippling effect on all other sectors of the economy including the stock markets. It is essential to be aware of the important announcement dates and avoid trading during these times or using the information to predict trends in the short and medium term.