High-impact releases get all the attention. Medium-impact data — individual country PMIs, weekly claims, industrial production, second-tier speakers — is often ignored, yet it can move a pair several pips in seconds.
Why it matters for scalpers:
A 3–5 pip spike is enough to hit a tight stop or skip a target.
Spreads widen briefly even on medium releases.
Some medium releases become high-impact when they are the market's current focus (e.g. claims during labour-market worries).
A simple approach:
Filter the calendar for medium and high events in your traded currencies.
No new entries in the 2–3 minutes before a medium release.
Existing trades: either move to break-even or accept the risk consciously.
Reviewing past trades stopped out near medium-impact times often shows how many losses this simple rule would have avoided.
Do you include medium-impact data in your trading plan?
I treat medium impact as a list that rotates rather than a fixed category. Each month I pick the two or three second tier releases the market is fixated on, and only those get the full no new entries rule.
Right now weekly claims are on my list. I have seen EURUSD jump 6 to 8 pips on a claims surprise inside a single M1 candle, which is more than my whole stop on some setups.
Speakers are where a fixed window breaks down. The prepared remarks are scheduled and usually dull, while the Q&A twenty minutes later is where the headline comes, so I widen the window around the Q&A instead.
One practical trap is coming up soon. UK clocks go back on 25 October but the US waits until 1 November, so for that week every 08:30 US release shows up an hour earlier on a London clock.
I have been caught by that before, holding a scalp into Canadian and US prints I thought were an hour away. Now I check release times by hand on the Sunday before each clock change.
