A pre-event trading checklist is a short record of what is scheduled, when your instrument is available, what exposure is already open, and what you will review afterward. It does not tell you which way a market will move; it stops a calendar entry from becoming an improvised decision.
A missed time-zone conversion can turn a clear calendar entry into a bad session assumption. Treat the calendar, broker instrument and your own account as separate inputs.
Verify the event and its clock
Start with the institution responsible for the announcement. The Federal Reserve Board calendar is the official starting point for its own scheduled events; the European Central Bank calendar index serves the same purpose for ECB items. Re-open the source before the session rather than relying on a copied calendar card.
Write down the event name, source URL, displayed date and time, and the time zone shown. Convert it to the time zone you use on the chart, then record both labels. If the source does not make the zone clear, leave it unresolved and check the institution's page or announcement instead of guessing.
A calendar entry is a schedule, not a forecast. Do not add an expected direction, volatility claim or price level unless you have separately verified evidence for it.
Match the schedule to the instrument
Check the broker's specification for the exact symbol you plan to monitor. Record its trading hours, any break around the event, and whether the chart clock uses the same zone as your calendar. A broad label such as “US indices” does not establish the hours or contract details of a particular broker's CFD.
Then capture the account state before the event: open positions, pending orders and any firm or personal limits that apply. This is an inventory, not a suggestion to close, hold or open anything. For a systematic strategy, compare the proposed event handling with the written rule and its tested implementation; our guide to testing a news filter in a prop backtest covers that separate question.
Write down decisions before the tape gets busy
Use a small worksheet rather than a prediction:
| Field | Record |
|---|---|
| Scheduled item | Exact label and institution page |
| Clock | Source time zone, chart time zone and conversion checked |
| Instrument | Broker symbol and its documented session |
| Existing exposure | Positions, pending orders and relevant account limits |
| If/then plan | What you will observe, and what would make you pause or cancel the plan |
| Review | Which order and account records you will inspect afterward |
Keep the “if” observable. “If the release surprises” is not a complete instruction unless you have defined where the surprise is measured and how your process responds. A more useful hypothetical might be: “If the chart clock and source clock do not reconcile, I will not use this event in the session plan until I verify the time.” That is an operational check, not a market call.
Review what actually happened
After the scheduled window, note what was published and when you observed it, then compare the plan with the platform record. Separate the published event, the quote or fill you saw, and your interpretation. If the session did not match the plan, record the mismatch before changing a rule.
This kind of review cannot establish that a strategy works or that an event caused a move. It creates a traceable record that you can compare across sessions. A cBot decision log applies the same idea to automated actions, while our proof process explains how realbacktesting treats reproducibility.
What belongs on a pre-event checklist?
Record the primary event source, its date and time zone, the exact broker instrument and session, current exposure, the conditions that pause your plan, and the records you will review afterward. Keep observations separate from predictions.
The same habit underpins realbacktesting's reproducibility standard: verify the inputs and write down what the record can actually show. In a session checklist, the forecast does not belong in the evidence column.