Automating trades around PMI releases.

What a PMI release is

A purchasing managers' index (PMI) is a monthly survey of companies: purchasing and supply executives report whether things such as new orders, production, employment and prices rose, fell or stayed the same compared with the previous month. The answers are combined into a diffusion index where 50 is the dividing line: above 50 points to expansion versus the prior month, below 50 to contraction. Because it arrives early in the month, before most official data for the same period, markets watch it closely.

For a trader in the US session two publishers matter:

• ISM (Institute for Supply Management) publishes the ISM Manufacturing PMI and the ISM Services PMI for the United States, as part of its Report On Business.
• S&P Global publishes PMIs for many countries, including the US, the euro area, Germany, France and the UK, plus flash PMIs: early estimates published late in the month, before the final figures at the start of the next one.

When they come out

ISM releases the Manufacturing PMI on the first business day of the month and the Services PMI on the third business day, both at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time (ISM release calendar, verified 4 October 2026). S&P Global's standard schedule is manufacturing PMI on the first working day and services PMI on the third working day, with times published in UTC (S&P Global PMI calendar, verified 4 October 2026). The next dates from those two official calendars:

ISM's calendar gives the time as 10:00 a.m. (EST); the UTC column for ISM is our conversion, and it moves by one hour when US daylight saving time ends on 1 November 2026. S&P Global times are as published in UTC. Convert everything to your broker's server time, which is the clock MT5 shows.

Why PMI days are tricky to automate

The general mechanics are the same as for any scheduled release. Before the number the market trades an expectation; when the figure surprises, prices reprice within seconds. In those minutes volatility jumps, spreads widen as liquidity providers quote wider, and prices can gap, so a stop loss held at the broker fills at the next available price, which can be beyond your level. We do not quote typical pip ranges: they change with every release and instrument.

What is specific to PMIs is that they come in clusters:

• Two US PMIs fifteen minutes apart. In the current calendars, S&P Global's US PMI is scheduled 15 minutes before ISM's on the same day (13:45 and 14:00 UTC on 5 October). A filter window built around only one of them leaves the other uncovered.
• Flash day is a morning sequence. On 23 October the flash PMIs for France, Germany, the euro area and the UK come out between 07:15 and 08:30 UTC, and the US flash at 13:45 UTC. A EUR or GBP pair can meet several releases in one session.
• Services and manufacturing land on different days, so a PMI "week" can mean two or three separate windows.

What it does to a TradingView → MT5 strategy

• Your alert does not know a PMI is due. TradingView alerts fire on price, indicators and strategy orders, not on calendar events, so an alert can fire because the release moved price.
• Seconds matter more. TradingView takes a few seconds to send the webhook; our part is about 0.5 s median from webhook to the order confirmed by the broker (19 to 23 September 2026, benchmarks). On the release candle, price can travel far in that time.
• Risk-based sizing assumes a clean stop. Wider spreads and slippage can make the real loss on a stopped trade larger than the percentage you set.
• Prop firm rules. Some firms restrict trading around high-impact news on some account types; read your firm's own rule and our prop firm automation checklist.

How to automate around it with SignalForge

SignalForge's news filter (Trader plan and above) runs on the execution side, inside the EA, so it works whatever your Pine Script does and whichever alert fired. You switch it on and tune it from the dashboard:

• Window: by default it blocks new entries from 30 minutes before to 15 minutes after each event.
• Impact level: by default it only reacts to high-impact events. Whether each PMI opens a window depends on how the calendar rates it, so check the impact rating in the calendar before the release. If it is not rated high, include medium impact in the filter or nothing will be blocked.
• Calendar: event times come from the ForexFactory calendar, so you do not type dates by hand.
• Currencies: in Auto mode the filter takes the currencies from the symbol of the chart the EA is attached to, so EURUSD picks up EUR and USD events. With the default 30 minutes before and 15 after, the windows of two PMIs a quarter of an hour apart chain into one longer block if both are in the calendar at your impact level. Indices carry no currency in their name, so set them by hand: USD on US500, US30 or NAS100; EUR on a German or euro area index.
• Opposite positions: by default, a signal that arrives inside the window closes positions in the opposite direction and does not open a new trade.
• Fail-open: if the calendar does not respond, the filter does not block. On that day there is no window, so keep your own look at the calendar.

Signals stopped by the filter appear in your dashboard as FILTERED with their reason, and in the MT5 Experts tab as [NEWS] lines, so after the release you can see exactly what was skipped. Background on calendar discipline in our TradingView news filter guide, and the feature itself on the news filter page.

PMI week checklist

• List every PMI of the week for the currencies you trade: ISM manufacturing and services, S&P Global finals and, late in the month, the flash releases.
• Convert the times to your broker's server time, minding the US and European daylight saving changes.
• Check the impact rating of each one in the ForexFactory calendar and set the filter's impact level to match what you want blocked.
• Check the currencies: Auto mode on currency pairs and gold, set by hand on indices.
• Decide on open positions before the first window: keep them with their stops or close them. The filter will not do it for you.
• Read your prop firm's news rule if you trade a funded or challenge account.
• Look at the calendar yourself on the day: if it is unreachable, the filter lets signals through.
• After the releases, check the dashboard for signals marked FILTERED.

FAQ

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