Macro Event Risk Calendar & Planner

The classification reflects how much a release has historically moved prices on the day it arrives, which comes down to two things: how much new information it carries relative to what markets already know, and how directly it feeds the policy path. Policy decisions and the inflation and employment reports that shape them sit at the top. Second-tier surveys and revisions to already-published series sit lower, because much of their content is anticipated by earlier data.

Because there is no time to reassess between them. Events spread across weeks each resolve into a new baseline before the next arrives, so a position can be adjusted in response. Events landing within days compound: a portfolio can still be carrying the reaction to the first when the second hits, and a hedge sized for one event is sized wrongly for two. The individual event risks do not simply add, they overlap.

The blackout is a self-imposed quiet period before each policy meeting, during which officials do not comment publicly on monetary policy or the economic outlook. Speeches given outside it can therefore carry policy signals and occasionally move markets substantially, while communication during the blackout is limited. That is why a speech scheduled outside the blackout is treated as a schedulable risk event and one inside it is not.

Only if they are added as custom entries. The preset list covers major US releases and policy decisions, which is where the largest cross-asset reactions have concentrated for dollar-denominated portfolios. A portfolio with meaningful exposure to other regions has its own high-impact calendar, including other central bank decisions, national inflation prints and elections, and those need to be entered manually to appear in the cumulative risk score.

Different portfolios are sensitive to different events. A growth-heavy equity portfolio carries more exposure to rate-sensitive releases such as inflation and policy decisions, while a cyclical or commodity portfolio responds more to activity data. A bond-heavy portfolio is directly exposed to the same policy path. Selecting the exposure type applies that mapping so the cumulative score reflects which of the listed events actually matter for the holdings involved.

Less, in the sense that it can be planned for, and that is the entire premise of a calendar. A known date allows a position to be sized, hedged or closed in advance, and options pricing already reflects the expected move. Unscheduled events carry no such preparation window, which is why they are usually addressed through standing position limits and diversification rather than through event-specific planning.

Far enough to see clustering, which usually means the next several weeks. Most major release dates are published months in advance, so a longer horizon is available, but the portfolio context that determines the response changes over time and a plan built too far ahead is made against positions that no longer exist. Building to the next policy meeting, and refreshing after each one, keeps the horizon aligned with the decisions being made.

The cumulative score changes, sometimes substantially, because clustering is what drives it. A release moved by a few days can either separate two events that were adjacent or push a third into an already crowded window. Government shutdowns and holidays have both delayed major statistical releases in the past. Re-entering the revised date rather than adjusting for it mentally is what keeps the score consistent with the actual schedule.

No. Reducing size lowers exposure to every outcome proportionally, including the favorable one, and it costs the spread on the way out and back in. A hedge keeps the position and offsets part of the downside, at the cost of the hedge premium and any basis between the hedge and the holding. They are different tradeoffs with different costs, and the calendar's clustering score informs the decision without determining which route fits a given portfolio.