Short answer
- Forex Factory and Investing.com show the schedule of economic releases for free, with impact ratings, forecasts and alerts before an event. Forex Factory can even link an MT4 or MT5 account read-only, but we found no alert on either site that checks your open trades against the next release.
- Paid squawk services read market headlines out loud as they happen, for forex, stocks, bonds and commodities. Newsquawk costs $199 or $399 a month, LiveSquawk $350 a month, and FinancialJuice sells real-time plans by the quarter.
- FxMind watches the calendar and your linked MT5 or MT4 account together. The calendar with countdowns and the usual move per release is free. From Trader ($49 a month), News Guard tells you before high-impact news lands on an open trade how far that pair usually moves and how far your stop is, and Prop Rule Guard checks your firm's rules. Pro ($89 a month) can act on accounts you allow.
- For a free calendar, or live audio news across all markets, those tools do more for less. FxMind is for the minutes before a release when you already hold a trade.
Words used here
- Economic calendar
- The schedule of economic releases: date, time, country, and how much each one usually moves prices.
- High-impact news
- The few releases that move prices most, such as US inflation (CPI), US jobs (NFP) and interest rate decisions. Forex Factory marks them red; Investing.com gives them three stars.
- Actual, forecast, previous
- The number that came out, what economists expected, and the number from last time. Prices often jump when actual and forecast are far apart.
- Squawk
- An audio news feed. Analysts read important headlines out loud the moment they happen.
- Pip and lot
- A pip is the smallest price step (0.0001 on EURUSD). A lot is the trade size; on 1 standard lot of EURUSD a pip is worth about $10.
- Stop loss
- The price where your broker closes the trade to limit the loss.
- Spread and slippage
- The spread is the gap between buy and sell prices; it widens around big news. Slippage is when your stop closes the trade at a worse price because price jumped past it.
- Prop firm news rule
- Some prop firms (companies that fund traders who pass a paid test) forbid opening or holding trades in a window around high-impact news. Breaking it can cost the account.
What knowing the news means when a trade is open
There are three layers to it. First, when: which release is coming, at what time, and how important it is. Second, what came out: the actual number against the forecast, or the headline. Third, what it means for you: how far this pair usually moves on this release, how far away your stop is, and what your prop firm allows.
Calendars answer the first two layers well, and for free. Squawk services answer the second one fastest, out loud. The third layer depends on your own account, and that is the part FxMind was built for.
The tools, in a few lines each
Forex Factory calendar
Free, and the calendar opens without an account. Each release shows time, currency, impact (red for high, orange for medium, yellow for low), actual, forecast and previous; actual numbers turn green or red against the forecast. You pick your time zone and it adjusts for daylight saving. Free members can set alerts for upcoming events by browser notification or email. Event pages show past data, related news and a usual effect line, such as whether a higher number is good for the currency. Its Trade Explorer links MT4 or MT5 accounts with the investor password and shows open positions. Forex Factory notes that all times are approximate.
Investing.com economic calendar
Free to view. Each event gets one to three stars for expected volatility, with actual, forecast and previous. You can filter by country, category and importance, change the time zone, and show the time left until each release. With a free account you can create an alert on an event and get it as an app notification, a pop-up or an email. It covers stocks, commodities, bonds and crypto as well as forex, with apps for iOS and Android.
FinancialJuice
A free tier called FJ Lite, which is not real time. Real-time plans are sold by the quarter: PRO adds the live voice squawk, headlines and calendar; ELITE adds COT positioning, release impact data and trade ideas. Analysts speak when news matters, with an AI voice for the Asia session and weekends. It says it is faster on 71 out of 100 headlines, alerts you when a figure comes out, and offers a money-back guarantee. Its phone apps are in beta.
Newsquawk
A professional squawk with human analysts. Basic covers one asset class (such as forex) with the headline feed, research sheets, economic calendar and mobile app; Pro covers every channel and adds equities tools. It publishes 12 to 15 research reports a day, lets you upload a portfolio or watchlist to highlight related news, and has a free demo with data delayed by 24 hours.
LiveSquawk
A 24-hour audio squawk with a live headline feed tagged by FX, macro, commodities and more, daily and weekly calendars, and previews of important data. It covers 120+ countries and offers a free trial with no card.
FxMind
The news calendar with countdowns and the usual price move per release is on the free plan, and so is the news mark on every trade in your journal (opened inside a release, or held through one). Trader ($49) adds calendar alerts and News Guard: a warning before high-impact news lands on a trade open on your linked MT5 or MT4 account, with the usual move next to your stop distance. Prop Rule Guard warnings for your firm's loss and news rules are on Trader too. Pro ($89) adds the guards that act: close a trade, close half, move the stop or cancel orders on accounts you allow. The releases are drawn on the chart itself, on our own renderer, with the headlines beside them. FxMind has no audio squawk and does not cover stocks.
Prices side by side
LiveSquawk also lists £275 a month and £3,025 a year. Newsquawk's trial price on its home page is shown in pounds (£24.99) for some visitors.
The 14-day trial is full Pro, no card, with 100 analyst questions a month and 3 strategy drafts a day; trade ideas are included.
What each one does
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Every FxMind feature, next to the same tools
The tables above hold the rows these tools share. Below is the whole FxMind list with the plan that has each feature; a competitor cell reads not listed when we found nothing on its own site.
Plans on 1 October 2026. The 14-day trial is Pro, with 100 analyst questions a month and 3 strategy drafts a day, no card. "Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Your accounts and trades (3)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Before you trade (7)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
While you trade (10)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
After you trade (18)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
AI analyst (5)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Practice (5)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Prop firms (4)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Community (3)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Sharing (2)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Learning (5)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Team and API (6)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
Account (5)
"Not listed" means we did not find it on the company's own site on the date checked. It may still exist.
What only FxMind does
Checked against the products researched on 30 September 2026 (their own pages first). Each line is something we did not find at any of them.
- A live MT4 and MT5 link with the read-only investor password. No EA, no install: open trades and profit in seconds. Others re-sync every few hours, need an EA, take statements or sell real time as an add-on.
- News at the moment of every trade. Each trade says whether you opened it inside a high-impact release or held it through one, with the usual move measured on our own candles.
- Prop rules watched live, before the breach. 10 firms and 641 presets for forex, warnings by email and push, and actions on the accounts you allow, with your own limits on top. The AI never opens a trade for you.
- An analyst whose every sentence cites a stored fact: your trades, the calendar, COT, headlines, candles and prop rules. Trade ideas are on every paid plan and in the 14-day trial; each has Open in ticket, which fills the desk's order ticket with the idea's entry, stop and target for you to check, size and send. Nothing is sent automatically.
- A trading desk on your own MT4 or MT5 account, with a rule check before you send. No journal we researched has order entry.
- Community with verified results. A setup's result in R and pips comes from the broker link, not from what the poster types. Following is your choice, and the trade is managed automatically only if you allow it.
- Practice on the real rules. Practise a prop challenge with the same engine as the live guard, or a past release with its usual move.
- English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese across the app, the analyst and the briefs.
The 12 minutes before a release, side by side
Same morning for all three kinds of tool. You bought 2 lots of EURUSD. Your stop loss is 18 pips away, about $360. US inflation data (CPI) comes out at 8:30 New York time. Over the last 12 releases, EURUSD moved 45 pips on average in the first 15 minutes.
Illustration built on FxMind's running example. The 45-pip average is FxMind calendar data for EURUSD over the last 12 CPI releases.
Who each one is for
Which FxMind plan: Free has the calendar with countdowns and usual moves, the news mark on every trade and 20 analyst questions a month. Trader ($49 a month) adds alerts before releases, News Guard, which warns before news hits an open trade, and Prop Rule Guard warnings, with news windows among its rule types. Pro ($89 a month) adds the guards that act (close, close half, move the stop) on accounts you allow. See the full list on /features and the plans on /pricing.
Using a calendar and FxMind together
Many traders keep a calendar open anyway, and that is fine. Use Forex Factory or Investing.com to plan the week. Use a squawk if your strategy lives in the first seconds after a release. Let FxMind watch the account, so the warning arrives even on the day you forgot to check the calendar. The FxMind calendar with usual moves is free, so you can compare it with the one you use today.
Questions
- 01
Is the Forex Factory calendar free?
Yes. The calendar opens without an account and membership is free. Alerts for calendar events need a membership.
- 02
Does any calendar know about my open trades?
Forex Factory's Trade Explorer links MT4 and MT5 accounts read-only and shows open positions. On 17 September 2026 we found no alert, on any of these sites, that checks your open trades against the next release. FxMind's News Guard does that for MT5 and MT4 accounts, from the Trader plan ($49 a month).
- 03
What is a news squawk?
An audio news service. Analysts listen to thousands of sources and read the headlines that move markets out loud, as they happen. Newsquawk, LiveSquawk and FinancialJuice all offer one.
- 04
Why does price jump past my stop on news?
In the first seconds after a big release, buyers and sellers pull back, the spread widens and price can skip levels. Your stop becomes a market order and fills at the next available price, which can be many pips away.
- 05
Does FxMind read news out loud?
No. FxMind has no audio squawk. It warns you before scheduled releases, uses headlines in analyst answers and daily summaries, and checks news against your open trades.
Sources
Every price and feature of another company comes from that company's own website. We checked each page on Sep 17, 2026.
- 01Forex Factory: calendarforexfactory.com/calendar
- 02Forex Factory: user guide (membership, alerts, time zone, Trade Explorer)forexfactory.com/userguide
- 03Forex Factory: calendar event pagesforexfactory.com/blog/1300388-calendar-event-pages-launched
- 04Forex Factory: event page exampleforexfactory.com/calendar/1-us-federal-funds-rate
- 05Investing.com: economic calendarinvesting.com/economic-calendar/
- 06Investing.com: alertsinvesting.com/alerts/
- 07Investing.com: how to read an economic calendarinvesting.com/academy/trading/how-to-read-an-economic-calendar/
- 08Investing.com: InvestingPro plansinvesting.com/pro/pricing/plans
- 09FinancialJuice: planspro.financialjuice.com/purchase
- 10FinancialJuice: FAQsfeatures.financialjuice.com/faqs/
- 11FinancialJuice: news site and speedfeatures.financialjuice.com/newssite/
- 12Newsquawk: pricingnewsquawk.com/pricing
- 13Newsquawk: homenewsquawk.com/
- 14LiveSquawk: home and priceslivesquawk.com/
- 15LiveSquawk: help and supportlivesquawk.com/help-support
- 16FxMind: pricingfxmind.ai/en/pricing
- 17FxMind: featuresfxmind.ai/en/features
Prices, plans and rules change. Check the company's own page before you pay. Product names belong to their owners and are used here only to say which product we mean.
This article is general information, not investment advice. FxMind gives no buy or sell signals and never opens a trade for you.