Newsman EA — News Straddle for NFP / CPI / FOMC Trades the explosive volatility around high-impact USD news with a stealth straddle: drops a buy-stop and a sell-stop seconds before the release, catches the breakout leg, protects it from the first tick, trails the winner, and can pyramid into a running trend — all positions on one shared stop.
⚠ IMPORTANT: Newsman runs on HEDGING accounts only. It holds a two-sided straddle and pyramids several positions on the same symbol, which a NETTING account cannot do. On a netting account the EA will not trade and will display a notice on the chart. Please make sure your MT5 account type is Hedging before purchasing.
Overview
Newsman is a fully automated news-straddle Expert Advisor built for the three releases that move the market hardest: Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP), CPI (inflation), and the FOMC rate decision.
A few seconds before a scheduled release, Newsman places a buy-stop above and a sell-stop below the current price. When the news hits and price explodes, one leg is triggered and rides the move; the opposite leg is kept alive for a short window in case price whips back, then removed.
Every position carries a protective stop-loss from the moment it is placed — nothing is ever left naked. The winning side is then trailed, and with pyramiding enabled Newsman adds to the position as the move extends, holding every same-direction trade under one shared stop-loss so the whole block is managed as a single risk unit.
How it finds the news
- Live trading: Newsman reads the built-in MT5 Economic Calendar (USD, high-impact) directly, so event times are always in your broker's server time — no manual timezone setup. The calendar is cached so it is not re-fetched on every tick.
- Strategy Tester: the calendar is not available in the tester, so past news events are hard-coded into the EA for backtesting — the 2026 NFP, CPI and FOMC release times, plus NFP across neighbouring years (first-Friday rule). All times are stored in UTC and converted to your broker's server time automatically (auto EET/GMT+2/+3 with EU DST, or a manual offset). This means you can backtest the strategy out of the box, with no calendar or external data needed.
Key features
- Straddles NFP, CPI and FOMC — enable/disable each independently.
- Stealth entry: resting stop orders with no visible take-profit.
- Protective stop-loss attached at placement, not after the fill.
- Price-based trailing stop (activation / distance / step).
- Pyramiding: add a new position every X points of favorable move, up to a configurable cap — all sharing one trailing stop.
- Optional OCO (cancel the opposite leg the instant one fills).
- Spread filter, configurable slippage, magic number and order comment.
- Works in both live and Strategy Tester (2026 dates built in).
Best used on
- Instruments that react strongly to USD news: XAUUSD (Gold), EURUSD, GBPUSD, US30 / US100 indices, USDJPY.
- Any timeframe — the EA is event-driven and acts on a 1-second timer, not on bar close. M1 or M5 is convenient for observation.
- An account with low spread and fast execution around news, ideally ECN/raw. News spreads widen; keep the spread filter in mind.
Requirements
- MetaTrader 5.
- A HEDGING account is required — the EA will not trade on a netting account.
- For live use: the Economic Calendar must be enabled in your terminal (it is by default) so the EA can read event times.
- Allow automated trading and, in older builds, allow the EA to use the calendar.
Risk notice: News trading involves slippage, spread widening and gaps. Past performance and backtest results do not guarantee future returns. Always test on a demo account and size your risk appropriately before going live.
Inputs
Order placement
| Input | Default | Meaning |
| Lots per leg | 0.01 | Volume for each straddle leg |
| Straddle distance from price (points) | 150 | How far the stop orders sit from price |
| Place legs this many seconds before release | 3 | Pre-news placement timing |
| Cancel opposite leg the moment one fills (OCO) | false | If true, remove the other leg on fill |
| Keep unfilled leg alive (minutes) | 15 | Otherwise keep the opposite leg this long after the release |
Risk / trailing
| Input | Default | Meaning |
| Protective SL set on the stop orders (points, 0 = none) | 450 | Stop-loss attached at placement |
| Profit (points) before the trail engages | 200 | Trailing activation threshold |
| SL trails this far behind price (points) | 100 | Trailing distance |
| Minimum SL improvement to re-modify (points) | 50 | Trailing step |
Incremental positions (pyramiding)
| Input | Default | Meaning |
| Enable pyramiding | true | Add positions as price runs; all same-direction positions share one SL |
| Add another position every … points | 100 | Favorable-move step between adds |
| Max total positions per direction | 100 | Cap, including the first position |
Which events to trade
| Input | Default | Meaning |
| Nonfarm payrolls | true | Trade NFP |
| CPI | true | Trade CPI |
| FOMC rate decision | true | Trade FOMC |
Event source (live)
| Input | Default | Meaning |
| Calendar look-ahead (days) | 5 | How far ahead to fetch events |
| Calendar refresh (hours) | 24 | Re-fetch only when the cache is older than this |
Broker timezone (Tester hard-coded dates only)
| Input | Default | Meaning |
| Offset mode | Auto | Auto = assume EET broker (GMT+2/+3, EU DST) |
| Manual offset (hours) | 2.0 | Used when offset mode = Manual (server = UTC + this) |
Broker / execution
| Input | Default | Meaning |
| Skip placement if spread exceeds (points, 0 = no limit) | 0 | Spread filter |
| Magic number | 11022003 | Position identifier |
| Order comment | Newsman EA | Comment tag on orders |
| Max deviation (points) | 50 | Slippage tolerance |
| Journal logging | true | Verbose log messages |
