How Traders Monitor Breaking News and Market Events
Why Traders Monitor News Differently
So I’m sure by now your feeds are probably full of “Iran attack imminent” headlines… and maybe they’re right.
We are seeing a lot of American metal being positioned in the region right now.
But today I wanted to share something different.
Practical ways to monitor the situation from a trader’s perspective, without getting sucked into the politics or noise of it all…
US TO STRIKE IRAN?
Before we dive into this… It’s worth thinking.
Why do you want to monitor things? What’s your plan of action?
- Which markets will you trade and how?
- Join the momentum on news, or look for the fade?
- Oil? Gold? Dollar?
Don’t fall into the trap of seeing breaking news, rushing to the screen and hitting something without a plan…
That’s how the mob trades. “Something’s happening… I need to trade this!”
Anyway, how do we monitor a situation like this, without noise or bias?
#1 X feeds
X is still the fastest real-time intelligence feed available to traders.
You want accounts focused on information, not opinions.
For example:
Open Source Intel – Tracks aircraft and vessel movementsWalter Bloomberg – Basically a Bloomberg terminal on XWar monitor – Slightly biased but seemingly well informed
Also, the Pentagon Pizza Report (read my Trading with the Pizza Meter post for context on why)
#2 Oil price movement alerts
Oil’s gonna move first, so if you can set an alert to trigger when there’s a price spike, you’ll be ahead of the game.
So, consider setting up oil volatility alerts on your chart platform.
For example:
- Alert on sudden percentage moves
- Alert on volatility spikes
- Or plot a 1-period ATR on a 1-minute chart and set alerts when it expands beyond normal ranges
That effectively turns your chart into a price-shock detector.
I run similar alerts on JPY pairs to monitor BOJ intervention risk… same principle.
#3 Polymarket
Prediction markets are a relatively new thing, but these are now trading hundreds of millions of dollars, so there’s volume and flow there…
Because of that, the probability of a strike will skyrocket right before and during an attack…as traders try and capture stale prices before it hits 100%.
So, consider monitoring the “US Strike Iran by…” market. That might well give you a heads up…
The key thing to remember here is this:
Your edge isn’t predicting whether something happens.
Your edge is being prepared if it does.
Most traders lose money during major news events because they react emotionally. They feel urgency.
They feel they must participate… after all that’s what traders do!
But being prepared removes urgency.
You already know which markets you’re watching.
And you already know how you’ll respond (if at all)