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Guide

How to Avoid News Trading Violations at Prop Firms

A news trading violation is the one breach that has nothing to do with how well you trade. You can be up on the day, inside every loss limit, and still lose the account because a stop loss fired 90 seconds before a release you never saw. This guide covers what counts as a violation, why the firm's calendar is the only one that matters, and a block window you can size in two minutes.

Last updated October 19, 2026 · rules checked October 2026

What counts as a news trading violation

Every firm with a news rule defines three things: a window (how many minutes before and after a release), a list of events the window applies to, and a set of actions that are forbidden inside it. The actions are where most traders get it wrong, because the three common versions are not the same rule.

Opening. The mildest version. You cannot place a new market or pending order inside the window. A position opened before the window can stay open and can be closed. The5ers runs this version on High Stakes accounts: no new orders from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after high-impact news, holding allowed (as of October 2026).

Opening or closing. The common version. Nothing may open or close inside the window, and a close includes your stop loss and take profit being hit. FTMO says this directly: the restriction applies to any order execution, including stop loss, take profit and pending orders. FTMO's window is 2 minutes either side of a restricted event, applies only once you are on a funded FTMO Account (not during the Challenge or Verification), and only to instruments tied to the affected currency. You may hold a position through the release if it was opened more than 2 minutes before it.

Opening, closing or holding. The strict version. Being in a position at all during the window is the breach. FundingPips applies this to funded accounts: no position opened, closed or held from 10 minutes before to 10 minutes after high-impact news on that currency, and the firm treats it as a hard breach, meaning the account is closed, not just the profit removed (as of October 2026).

Some firms do not breach you at all. They take the profit instead. FundedNext allows news trading on a funded account but counts only 40% of profit from trades opened or closed within 5 minutes either side of a listed high-impact event, while losses apply in full. Goat Funded caps profit on such trades at $150 (as of October 2026). FXIFY breaches on anything opened or closed within 5 minutes of high-impact news on Instant Funding accounts, and profit from those trades does not count (as of October 2026). Topstep and Apex allow news trading on futures evaluations, with Apex prohibiting opposing positions placed to gamble on a release.

  • FTMO funded account: 2 minutes either side, open or close (SL and TP count), hold allowed. FTMO rules
  • FundingPips funded: 10 minutes either side, open, close or hold, hard breach. FundingPips rules
  • FXIFY Instant Funding: 5 minutes either side, open or close. FXIFY rules
  • FundedNext funded: 5 minutes either side, keep 40% of profit, losses in full. FundedNext rules
  • The5ers High Stakes: 2 minutes either side, no new orders, holding allowed.
  • Topstep and Apex: allowed. Topstep rules, Apex rules
The same 8:30am release can be legal on one of your accounts, cost you 60% of the profit on a second, and close a third. If you run the same pair across firms, the strictest rule is your rule.

Why the firm's calendar is not the public calendar

Traders check a public economic calendar, see nothing marked red at the time they were trading, and assume they were safe. Then the breach email arrives. The reason is simple: the firm does not grade you against a public calendar. It grades you against its own list.

FTMO publishes its own economic calendar and marks the events it enforces as restricted events. FundingPips names its dashboard calendar as the official source. Other firms refer to listed high-impact events without saying which feed they pull from. In every case the firm's list is the contract, and the list is not identical to any single public source.

The differences come from three places. Classification: one source rates a central bank speech as medium impact, the firm rates it high. Coverage: a firm's list may include a bond auction or a press conference that a public site drops. Timing: a revised release time, a daylight saving shift, or a calendar set to the wrong time zone puts the whole window off by an hour.

The real pattern looks like this. A trader on a FundingPips funded account is long gold on a Tuesday evening in the US. Nothing on the public calendar until Wednesday morning. The firm's list shows a Fed speech at 7:00pm, rated high impact. The trader is holding at 6:50pm. That is the breach. Nothing was opened, nothing was closed, and the trade was in profit. The position simply existed inside a window on a list the trader never opened.

The fix is to stop treating any single public calendar as the truth and build your day from the firm's list plus several top news sources combined, so an event on any of them gets a window.

A pre-session habit that takes two minutes

Do this before the first order of every session, not once on Sunday. Lists change during the week, and the events that breach accounts are usually the ones added or reclassified late.

  1. Open the firm's own calendar for every funded account you will trade today. Write down every high-impact or restricted event on the currencies you trade, with the time in your own time zone.
  2. Cross those against several top news sources combined. Anything that appears on any list on your currencies gets a window. You are looking for the union, not the overlap.
  3. For each event, write the block window in clock time: start and end. Not the release time. If you only write the release time, you will trade into the first half of the window.
  4. Set an alert 15 minutes before each window opens. That is your cue to be flat, or to confirm that holding is allowed on that account and that your stop cannot be hit inside the window.
  5. Note which accounts the window applies to. A 2-minute FTMO window and a 10-minute FundingPips window at the same release are two different blocks, and the larger one governs anything you run on both.

How to size the block window

The firm's window is the minimum, not the plan. Three things make a window bigger than the number in the rule.

Execution lag. Your close request takes time to reach the server, and the server timestamp is what the firm reads. Closing at 8:27:50 for an 8:30 release with a 2-minute window is cutting it to 10 seconds. Add 60 seconds to each side of every window as a floor.

Stop distance. On accounts where a stop loss being hit counts as a close, holding through the window is only safe if price cannot reach your stop. On gold, a high-impact US release regularly moves $15 to $30 in the first minute. If your stop is $8 away, holding is a coin flip with the account as the stake. Either widen the stop before the window or be flat.

Clock error. Your phone, your platform and the firm's server can disagree by a minute or more. Verify once a week that your platform clock matches the firm's server time.

Worked example, gold, 8:30am US release, same pair on three accounts. FTMO funded: 2 minutes, plus 1 minute buffer, block 8:27 to 8:33, holding allowed if stop is safe. FXIFY Instant: 5 minutes plus 1, block 8:24 to 8:36, no open or close. FundingPips funded: 10 minutes plus 1, block 8:19 to 8:41, flat the whole time. If you are running one gold idea across all three, you are flat from 8:19 to 8:41, full stop. A 30-minute window either side, 8:00 to 9:00, is the simplest rule if you trade several firms and do not want to track three different blocks.

One more sizing rule: if a window lands inside your normal entry period, treat the session as two sessions. Trades before the window close before it. Trades after the window start after it.

If you think a breach was wrong

Pull the firm's calendar for that day, your trade history with server timestamps, and the firm's written rule. Check three things: was the event on the firm's list, was the instrument tied to that currency, and did any execution, including a stop, land inside the window. If all three are true, the breach will stand. If one is false, send those three items to support in one message. Firms do reverse breaches on timing errors, but only with the timestamps in hand.

In Proof

One calendar, every firm's list, block windows per account

Proof combines several top news sources with each firm's own list, filters it to the markets you trade, and draws the block window for every account you hold, with the firm's minutes plus your buffer. The window shows in Risk Guard next to your room left for the day, so the pre-session check above is a glance, not a tab hunt.

See the news calendar

Frequently asked questions

Does a stop loss being hit during news count as a violation?

At firms that forbid opening or closing in the window, yes. FTMO states the restriction applies to stop loss, take profit and pending orders. If your stop can be reached by the release spike, either move it outside the likely range before the window or close the position first.

Can I hold a trade through high-impact news on a funded account?

It depends on the firm. FTMO allows holding if the trade was opened more than 2 minutes before the event. The5ers allows holding on High Stakes. FundingPips does not: a position held inside its 10-minute window is a hard breach (as of October 2026). Check the firm page for your account.

Which economic calendar do prop firms use for news trading rules?

Their own. FTMO marks restricted events on its own calendar; FundingPips names its dashboard calendar as the official source. Public calendars can differ on classification, coverage and times, which is why an event can breach you without ever appearing on the site you checked.

Does the news rule apply during a prop firm challenge?

Usually not. FTMO's restriction applies only once you are on a funded FTMO Account, and FundedNext lets you open, close or hold through news in Stellar 2-Step challenge phases. Instant funding accounts are funded from day one, so the rule applies immediately.

How many minutes before and after news should I stay flat?

At least the firm's window plus one minute of buffer on each side, and the largest window across every account trading that pair. Across FTMO, FXIFY and FundingPips that means 11 minutes either side. Many traders simplify to 30 minutes either side for every red event.

Related

Sources checked October 2026: FTMO FAQ: Can I trade news? · FundedNext help: News trading rule