Trading NQ Around News: CPI, FOMC, and the 10:00 AM Rule

Most NQ educators won't tell you to stop trading. That's not what anyone wants to hear when they're paying for education. But the LS Model has a clear, non-negotiable rule on major news events: stand down.

Not "be careful." Not "use a wider stop." Stand down.

Here's why that rule exists, which events trigger it, and exactly how to manage your session calendar around them.

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What the LS Model Reads — and What News Destroys

The LS Model is a structural approach. It reads price action: where liquidity has been swept, where fair value gaps have formed, where breaks of structure occurred. Every entry is based on a defined structural condition.

The problem with news is that it doesn't respect structure. When CPI prints at 8:30 AM ET, NQ doesn't look at the FVG from the prior session and decide to honor it. A 50-point spike can fire in either direction in under a second. Stops get hunted indiscriminately. The structural levels that defined a valid setup before the release become meaningless during it.

The model is designed to read what price has done in order to anticipate what it will do next. During a major release, price is driven by a single data point and the reaction to it — not by any structure you identified beforehand. You're no longer trading a setup. You're speculating on a release outcome.

Those are fundamentally different activities, and only one of them is what the LS Model is built for.

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The Events That Trigger a Stand-Down

High-impact monthly releases:

• CPI (Consumer Price Index) — typically 8:30 AM ET, around the 10th–13th of each month
• NFP (Non-Farm Payrolls) — first Friday of each month, 8:30 AM ET
• Core PCE — typically last Friday of the month, 8:30 AM ET
• ISM Manufacturing / Services PMI — first and third business days of the month, 10:00 AM ET

Scheduled Fed events:

• FOMC Rate Decision — eight times per year, 2:00 PM ET
• FOMC Press Conference — follows the decision at 2:30 PM ET

Other notable events:

• GDP (Advance, Preliminary, Final) — quarterly, 8:30 AM ET
• Retail Sales — monthly, 8:30 AM ET

The top-tier events — CPI, NFP, FOMC — are the ones that can move NQ 100+ points in minutes. Those are full stand-down sessions.

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The 10:00 AM Rule in Practice

Many ISM and PMI releases drop at 10:00 AM ET, which falls inside the primary LS Model session window (9:30–11:00 AM ET).

The rule: if there's a scheduled release at or near 10:00 AM ET, the active trading window closes at 9:55 AM. Do not initiate a new position within five minutes of a scheduled release.

Why five minutes? NQ can begin to move before the official release time as algos pre-position. By 9:58 AM ahead of a 10:00 AM ISM print, you may already be in a pre-release spike with no structural context to guide you.

If you're already in a trade when 9:55 AM arrives:

1. Close the position and take the realized result before the release, or
2. Honor your original stop and accept that the release adds uncertainty

What is wrong is opening a new position knowing a release is about to fire.

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FOMC: The Afternoon Version of the Same Problem

FOMC fires at 2:00 PM ET, outside the primary session window. But the principle is identical, and the magnitude is greater.

The FOMC rate decision is the single most market-moving scheduled event in the US calendar. On decision days:

• NQ's intraday range is typically 2–3x its normal size
• The 2:00 PM announcement produces an immediate 50–150 point spike in one direction
• The 2:30 PM press conference can reverse that move entirely

If you're in a position at 2:00 PM on an FOMC day, you're not managing a trade — you're holding through a coin flip with 100-point tails.

The LS Model rule for FOMC decision days: observation only, full day. FOMC days tend to produce unusual structure even in the morning as the market prices in possible outcomes, which means the pre-decision structure is unreliable for the model's purposes. The no-trade rule applies from the open.

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Pre-Session Prep: How to Calendar This

The economic calendar should be part of your session prep every day. This takes two minutes and can prevent significant unnecessary losses.

Where to check:

• ForexFactory.com — color-coded by impact level; filter for "High Impact USD"
• CME Group Economic Calendar — official release times
• Your broker's platform calendar

The daily routine:

1. Pull up the calendar before the session opens
2. Mark any high-impact events and their exact times
3. If there's an 8:30 AM release: wait until the reaction settles (typically 20–30 minutes post-release) before looking for structure
4. If there's a 10:00 AM release: hard stop on new entries at 9:55 AM
5. If it's FOMC day: observation only, all day

Write these on a sticky note before the open. Don't rely on remembering mid-session.

For how the NY session window normally operates: NQ Futures Session Times: When to Trade NAS100.

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Why Most Educators Don't Teach This

Standing down on news days means fewer trade opportunities. Fewer trade opportunities means less "action" content and fewer moments to highlight a good call.

The incentive structure pushes educators toward trading through news and calling it "risk management" when it goes right, or "unexpected volatility" when it doesn't.

The LS Model doesn't work that way. Lewis marks news days on the calendar before the session. On FOMC day, The Room is explicitly in observation mode. On CPI morning, the live session may not run active commentary until the post-release structure is clear.

This isn't caution for the sake of caution. It's recognition that the model is designed to trade structure — and structure doesn't function during news. Trading anyway is applying the right tool to the wrong situation.

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Applying the 1% Daily Risk Rule on News Days

Even on normal days, the LS Model applies a 1% daily loss ceiling. On days where there's a news risk but you decide to trade the pre-release window, consider cutting that limit in half.

On a $10,000 account with a normal $100 max daily loss, a news-adjacent session might warrant a $50 limit and a deliberate exit before the release fires.

The goal isn't to make every session profitable. It's to stay in the game long enough to let your edge express itself over hundreds of trades. One 300-point FOMC spike against an open position can erase weeks of disciplined gains.

For more on position sizing and loss limits: NQ Futures Risk Management and Position Sizing and How to Pass a Futures Prop Firm Evaluation on NQ.

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Related: NQ Session Times: When to Trade NAS100 · How to Pass a Prop Firm Evaluation on NQ · NQ Futures Risk Management and Position Sizing

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Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. This content is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice.