FOMC trading automation: one decision, two spikes.

What the FOMC is and why it moves markets

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the Federal Reserve body that sets US monetary policy, including the target range for the federal funds rate. It holds eight scheduled meetings a year, each over two days, and publishes its schedule on the Federal Reserve's FOMC calendar.

An FOMC day is really two events in one afternoon: the policy statement with the rate decision, and half an hour later the Chair's press conference, where answers to journalists' questions can move markets as much as the decision itself. At four meetings a year the Fed also publishes its Summary of Economic Projections with the statement. Three weeks after each meeting come the minutes, another scheduled release.

2026 meeting dates and times (verified 4 October 2026)

The statement is released at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the second day of the meeting (as printed on the 2026 statements: "For release at 2:00 p.m."), and the Fed's calendar lists the press conference at 2:30 p.m. The remaining 2026 meetings:

The Fed has also published tentative 2027 dates: 26-27 January, 16-17 March*, 27-28 April, 8-9 June*, 27-28 July, 14-15 September*, 26-27 October and 7-8 December* (* with projections). In the Fed's words, each date is tentative until confirmed at the meeting immediately preceding it.

Sources: federalreserve.gov FOMC meeting calendar, 2026 FOMC statements and the Federal Reserve October 2026 events calendar, checked 4 October 2026. US clocks go back on 1 November 2026 and European clocks on 25 October 2026, so the UTC and Madrid times of US releases shift in late October and early November. Your broker's server time is a third clock: convert carefully. An unscheduled meeting would not appear in these dates.

Why spreads widen twice on FOMC day

Ahead of 2:00 p.m. ET, liquidity thins as market makers step back; spreads widen and the first reaction to the statement can gap through several levels. Then the market often goes quiet and waits for the press conference, where the tone of a single answer can produce a second burst, sometimes in the opposite direction.

• Market orders and triggered stops fill at the next available price, so slippage is possible on both bursts.
• Whipsaw between the statement and the press conference is hard on trend-following and breakout logic: two opposite signals within an hour are a classic FOMC pattern.
• Afternoon liquidity. For European traders the release lands in the evening, when the European session has closed; plan with the broker's real conditions, not with morning spreads.

The size of the moves depends on the surprise, the broker and the instrument; nobody can give you a reliable number in advance.

What FOMC means for a TradingView → MT5 bot

• Two windows, not one. A filter tuned for an 8:30 a.m. data release can be open again by the time the press conference starts.
• Seconds still matter. TradingView takes a few seconds to send the webhook, then SignalForge measured about 0.5 s median to the confirmed order (19 to 23 September 2026). In the first seconds after the statement, the price your alert evaluated may no longer exist.
• Reversal signals. If your strategy reverses on an opposite signal, an FOMC whipsaw can produce a close and a new entry at two bad prices.
• Prop firm restrictions can name the rate decision explicitly: FTMO's list does, as the box below shows.

How to automate around FOMC with SignalForge

SignalForge's news filter runs inside the EA on your MT5 account, so it works for every alert you send, whatever your Pine Script does. What it does, exactly:

• Plan: included in Trader ($14.99/mo) and above, together with Prop Firm Shield, the trend filter and Telegram notifications.
• Source and scope: it reads the ForexFactory economic calendar and, by default, acts on high-impact events only.
• Default window: from 30 minutes before to 15 minutes after the event. Signals that arrive inside it do not open new trades.
• Opposite positions: by default, a signal that arrives inside the window still closes a position in the opposite direction, but does not open the new one. This close-opposite behaviour is a toggle in the dashboard.
• It does not flatten your account. Positions you already hold stay open with their stop-loss and take-profit at the broker. If you want to be flat into the number, close them yourself or let your strategy exit before the window.
• Currencies: in Auto mode the filter takes the currencies from the symbol of the chart the EA is attached to (EURUSD gives EUR and USD). Index symbols such as US30, NAS100 or US500 carry no currency code, so set USD by hand for them.
• Fail-open: if the calendar does not respond, the filter does not block. On the days that matter most, add a second layer with the trading-hours filter (two windows or a map of 48 half-hour slots, set in your timezone and converted to the broker's server time).
• Visible: a blocked signal appears in the dashboard as FILTERED with its reason, and the EA writes a [NEWS] line in the MT5 Experts tab.
• Mind the press conference. With the default window, blocking ends 15 minutes after the 2:00 p.m. statement, before the 2:30 p.m. press conference starts. Whether the press conference appears as its own high-impact calendar entry depends on the calendar, so do not rely on it: block 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. ET (or whatever span your strategy needs) with the trading-hours filter.

Last line of defence: Prop Firm Shield (also Trader and above) enforces a daily loss limit in $ or %, measured on equity against the day's starting balance, plus a profit target. When the limit is hit the EA stops and closes open positions; it rearms at 00:00 broker server time. It does not enforce a maximum or total drawdown, so keep an eye on that yourself or with your prop firm's tools.

FOMC-day checklist

• Note the official dates: 28 October and 9 December 2026, statement 2:00 p.m. ET, press conference 2:30 p.m. ET.
• News filter on (Trader plan or above), high impact, USD set by hand for index symbols.
• Extend the protection over the press conference with a trading-hours window: the default news window alone ends before it.
• Decide what happens to open positions and to reversal logic before 2:00 p.m. ET.
• On FTMO Standard funded accounts, no opens or closes (SL/TP included) within 2 minutes of the decision.
• Next day, review FILTERED signals in the dashboard and the [NEWS] lines in the Experts tab.

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