Can You Trade News at a Prop Firm? Rules and a CPI-Day Checklist

Yes, at many futures prop firms you can trade the news, but not always in every account. A common pattern is that news trading is allowed in the evaluation and restricted in the funded account, where you must be flat for a short window around major releases like CPI, FOMC and Non-Farm Payrolls.

Because the rule changes by firm and by stage, the honest answer to “can I trade CPI?” is “check your firm’s page for your exact account”. This guide shows what news rules look like, the release times for the rest of 2026 in four time zones, what a fast market does to a planned stop, and a checklist for news day.

The three kinds of news rule

A real example: Take Profit Trader (checked 12 October 2026)

Take Profit Trader’s own news-trading page says there is no news restriction in the evaluation. In its funded PRO and PRO+ accounts you must close all positions and cancel all orders from one minute before to one minute after each prohibited event, which it lists as including FOMC announcements, Non-Farm Payrolls and CPI. In PRO the platform doesn’t block the order, but trading in the window fails the account; in PRO+ the platform won’t let the trade be placed. The firm says its published schedule in the trader dashboard is the source of truth for events and times.

So for a CPI release at 8:30:00 a.m. ET, a one-minute window means: flat with no working orders by 8:29, no new trades until 8:31. Other firms use different windows, different event lists, or no restriction at all. The prop firm rules cheat sheet has a news line for each firm we track.

Release times for the rest of 2026

US releases are set in Eastern Time. The UK and the EU move their clocks back on 25 October and the US on 1 November, so for one week the gap between New York and Europe is an hour shorter. FOMC on 28 October falls in that week.

CPI and jobs dates and times are from the BLS release schedule; FOMC meeting dates from the Federal Reserve’s calendar (the statement is usually published at 2:00 p.m. ET on the last day of the meeting). Agencies can reschedule, so check the official page the day before.

If you trade the New York morning, CPI and NFP land 60 minutes before the stock market opens at 9:30 ET. Our guide to futures trading hours has the full session map and the daylight-saving shifts.

What a fast market does to a planned stop

News rules exist because prices can jump past orders in the seconds after a release. A stop order becomes a market order when it’s touched, so in a gap it fills at the next available price, which can be worse than your stop.

A worked example with E-mini Nasdaq-100 (NQ), where one point is $20 per contract:

The trader planned to risk $800, inside a $1,000 daily loss limit. The fill cost $1,400, so one trade went through the daily limit. The 15 points of slippage is an illustration, not a forecast: on some releases it’s zero, on others it’s more. The point is that your size has to survive a fill worse than your stop, not just the stop. See futures tick values for the point values and soft vs hard daily loss limits for what happens when a single trade crosses the line.

Why the rule is different in the evaluation and the funded account

If a firm lets you trade CPI in the evaluation but not in the funded account, it’s easy to build a habit in the first stage that breaks a rule in the second. A trader who passed by trading every 8:30 release now has to change their routine on the first day they’re funded, often without noticing until it’s too late.

Two ways to avoid that:

• Trade the evaluation under the funded rules. If the funded account will need you flat around CPI, be flat in the evaluation too. You pass with the habits you’ll keep.
• Keep the rules per account, not in your head. When you run an evaluation and a funded account at the same time, write each account’s news rule next to its daily limit, so the 8:29 decision doesn’t depend on remembering which account you’re in.

CPI-day checklist (7 steps)

1. Read your firm’s news rule for your exact account, evaluation or funded. Note the event list and the window length.
2. Write the release time in your own time zone on your plan, plus your flat-by time if your firm has a window.
3. Decide before the session: flat through the release, or trading it with a written plan. Deciding at 8:29 is how rules get broken.
4. Cancel working orders before the window. At firms with a flat window, a resting limit order that fills inside it can count as a trade.
5. If you trade it, size for slippage. Work out your loss if the fill is 1.5× or 2× your stop distance and make sure that still fits inside your daily stop.
6. Know where your daily limit and drawdown are before the release, not after.
7. Tag the trade (for example “CPI” or “News”) so you can see later whether news days help or hurt you. Our guide on how to tag trades shows a simple system.

None of this says whether you should trade the news. That’s your call, inside your firm’s rules.

Find out what news days actually do to your results

After a few months, the useful question isn’t “is news trading allowed?” but “do I trade better or worse on news days?”. Filter your journal by your news tag and compare average R, win rate and rule breaks with normal days. If you don’t track R yet, start with R-multiples.

TJ has a built-in economic calendar with news alerts, a “Traded news” mistake tag, and a news setting in Prop guard: mark news as not allowed for a funded account and it shows on that account’s rule chips next to your flat-by time and daily limit. Try it free for 3 days at tjtrace.com.

Release dates checked on the BLS and Federal Reserve pages, and the firm rule on the firm's official page, on 12 October 2026. Always confirm with your firm's current rules and calendar. TJ is journaling software, not financial advice.