How to Trade Around NFP

The minute, measured

What the payrolls minute does to an order that is inside it, measured on two real minutes. On 2 July 2026 the last price before the number was 1.13999 and the first price after it was 1.14049, a jump of 5.0 pips — a pip is the fourth decimal place of the price — with no trade possible in between; the bar then ran from 1.14041 to 1.14508. A trade sold at 15:25 with a stop 25 pips above, at 1.14249, had its stop passed inside that bar, at whatever price was first available past it. On 5 June the jump was 6.8 pips down and the bar ran the other way, and the same stop was never touched. The minute is a jump, then a bar wider than most stops, in either direction.

A level crossing

Picture a level crossing with the barrier down. It comes down at 15:25 and the light goes on; the train is the number, and it comes through at 15:30 exactly, on a timetable everybody has. The crossing is used before the barrier comes down or after it lifts, and the rule is about the minute, not about the train, because nobody knows how long the train is or how fast. Trading around payrolls is the crossing rule: an order is across before the barrier, or it waits for the barrier to lift, and it is not on the rails at 15:30, where the two real bars above show what the rails are like.

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