How to journal and review your trades on NFP days

NFP Friday tempts impulsive trading. Here is how to plan, tag and review those trades with your own history.

Not financial advice. This page is educational information about how to prepare and review trades around scheduled events. It does not tell you what to buy or sell, it does not predict any market move, and trading leveraged products can lose more than you expect. Dates and times come from the official sources linked on the page and can change, so confirm them before you rely on them.

The US jobs report, known to traders as non-farm payrolls or NFP, is released on a monthly schedule and is a regular fixture for anyone who trades US dollar pairs, gold or indices. Like any scheduled event it can bring a burst of volatility, and it can also bring a burst of impulsive trading. This page explains what the report is, where to find its official dates, and how to journal your NFP trades so you learn from them instead of repeating them.

What the report is

The report is the Employment Situation release from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. It combines results from two surveys: one of employers, which gives the headline change in non-farm payroll employment, and one of households, which gives the unemployment rate. Coverage usually also quotes average hourly earnings and revisions to the previous two months. The official schedule is on the BLS site, and at the time of writing it lists the release for October 2026 on 6 November 2026 and for November 2026 on 4 December 2026, both at 8:30 a.m.

BLS release schedule for the Employment Situation. Release dates can be moved, and the BLS lists only upcoming dates, so check the schedule in the week you plan to trade.

What makes NFP days different to trade

The numbers can be revised. The first figure is revised in later months, so the reaction to the first print is not the last word.
Several figures arrive at once. The headline, the unemployment rate and earnings can point in different directions, which can make the first minutes messy.
Liquidity can thin out. Brokers may widen spreads around the release. Spreads on your account at that moment are what matter, and history does not store them.
It is a Friday. Many traders hold into the weekend or close early, which changes behaviour late in the day.

A plan you can write down

Before the release, decide and write one line for each of these: will I trade the release, trade the reaction or stay out; what is my maximum loss for the day; and what happens to a position I already hold. Writing it beforehand makes it possible to check afterwards whether you followed it. A plan you only remember is easily rewritten after a win or a loss. The trading checklist template has room for a pre-event section, and the trading plan template covers the rules you carry from day to day.

Tag every trade near NFP

The first step is to be able to find those trades later. In the journal, give each trade you took close to the release a tag such as news: NFP, and add a second tag for what you did: flat before, held through, entered after or faded the spike. Tags cost ten seconds and are the only way to compare news trades with ordinary ones afterwards. The tagging guide shows a simple scheme.

What to write in the notes

Whether the trade was planned before the release or taken in reaction to it.
Your size compared with a normal trade. Many traders find they trade bigger or smaller on event days without deciding to.
The spread you saw when you entered. MetaTrader 5 history does not store the spread at the time of a trade, so a note or a screenshot is the only record.
How you felt. A sentence is enough: calm, rushed, afraid to miss it.

Check slippage with the data you already have

AI Trading Journal records each closed position's stop loss and its exit price, and it keeps the last non-zero stop it found on the position's orders. For a trade that ended on its stop, the gap between the two numbers is a rough measure of slippage. If your stop was at 1.0850 and the exit price was 1.0842, the stop filled eight pips worse than planned. This only works when the stop was not moved after entry, so check the notes. For how stops show in history, see history comments sl, tp and so and stops level and freeze level.

Find the release in your broker's clock

MetaTrader 5 stamps deals in the broker's server time, and a journal built from that history shows the same clock. To find the trades around a release you have to turn the official time, usually given in Eastern, London or Tokyo time, into server time. The page on MT5 server time explains how to find your broker's offset, and the session times converter does the arithmetic. Check the conversion in the weeks when the United States and Europe change their clocks on different dates, because the usual gap between New York and London briefly changes.

A worked example (hypothetical)

A trader has taken part in ten NFP Fridays. On six of them they stayed out until half an hour after the release, and on four they traded the first minutes. They tag the first group wait and the second reaction. The six waiting days made +$310 in total with an average of +$52, while the four reaction days lost -$420, an average of -$105. With a sample this small the result could be luck, so they keep tagging. After twenty more Fridays the difference may hold or vanish. The point of the example is the method: the labels came first, and the comparison came from the data, not from memory.

Friday-specific habits to review

Did you hold a trade into the weekend because of a news move? See MT5 swap explained, because a position held over the rollover can carry a swap charge.
Did you add to a loser after the release, hoping it would come back? The losing streak page covers that pattern.
Did your size change from your usual? The position size calculator shows what a fixed risk looks like.

What the journal does and does not do

AI Trading Journal reads your closed trades from MetaTrader 5 on your Windows PC and saves them in a journal on your computer, with notes, ratings, tags and screenshots for every trade, and weekly and monthly totals. It will show you the result of every NFP Friday once you have tagged them. It does not read news, it does not know when the report comes out, and it never places or changes trades. The release dates come from the BLS schedule and the tags come from you.

Limits

This page does not predict how any market will react to the jobs report.
Dates and times come from the BLS schedule at the time of writing and can change.
Closed-trade history cannot show the spread at the time of a trade or the path of a stop.
Nothing here is trading or investment advice.

Quieter releases need a lighter routine: journal GDP and PCE days and holiday and thin-market days.

For the lighter US releases, see retail sales and jobless claims days and PMI and ISM days.

Frequently asked questions

When is the next NFP release?

At the time of writing the BLS schedule lists 6 November 2026 for October data and 4 December 2026 for November data, both at 8:30 a.m. Always check the schedule.

What does NFP stand for?

Non-farm payrolls, the headline employment figure in the BLS Employment Situation report.

Is NFP always on a Friday?

It is usually released on a Friday, but the BLS sets the schedule and can change it, so check the official dates.

Why do spreads widen at NFP?

Liquidity can thin out around the release and brokers may widen spreads. Check what your own account showed and write it in your notes.

Can the journal tell me which trades were NFP trades?

Only if you tag them. It reads your closed trades, and the tag marks which ones were taken around the release.

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