The two minutes before data matter more than the two after
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2026 7:46 am
Plenty of scalpers wait for the release, then jump in. By then the interesting part of the spread story is already over. The sequence on a typical high-impact release looks like this: liquidity providers start pulling quotes or widening a minute or two before the print, the spread drifts from 0.6 to maybe 1.5 or 2, then at the release it can jump far higher for a few seconds, and then it collapses back toward normal within a minute or so. Details change by broker and event.
The trap is the minute before. Price looks calm, ranges shrink, and mean-reversion setups seem perfect. That calm is partly an artefact of thin books and wide quotes. Entering there means paying more spread than usual for a move that has a real chance of being cut in half by the release.
Pulling up a tick chart or a spread log for the last ten releases on your pair is more useful than any general rule. Look at three timestamps: T minus 120 seconds, T minus 10 seconds, and T plus 60 seconds. Compare spread at each.
For most scalping styles the cleanest policy is to be flat or inactive from two minutes before until at least a minute after.
Which release type, NFP, CPI or central bank, gives you the ugliest spread behaviour, and for how long?
The trap is the minute before. Price looks calm, ranges shrink, and mean-reversion setups seem perfect. That calm is partly an artefact of thin books and wide quotes. Entering there means paying more spread than usual for a move that has a real chance of being cut in half by the release.
Pulling up a tick chart or a spread log for the last ten releases on your pair is more useful than any general rule. Look at three timestamps: T minus 120 seconds, T minus 10 seconds, and T plus 60 seconds. Compare spread at each.
For most scalping styles the cleanest policy is to be flat or inactive from two minutes before until at least a minute after.
Which release type, NFP, CPI or central bank, gives you the ugliest spread behaviour, and for how long?