FINALLY a REAL US Economic Calender and Trading the econ NEWS

For all those out there who needed an actual Economic Calender IN US TIME ZONE I found one at Forex Forum, Forex Calendar, Forex News @ Forex Factory that gives news releases in US Eastern Standard time(At least its better than converting 24 hour GMT to US) AND MOst importantly, they also explain what each news release is about, how severe an impact the news may have and what effect it will have on your currency.

It’s a lot better than my forex broker who just splurts out mindless data with me not having a clue what they mean.

I also found a neat program that helps us newbies figure out what currency markets are open when with US time conversions and gives me a better idea of which currencies to trade when.Its called “forex trader sidekick” available from Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com

Forex Trader Sidekick - Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com

Finally, has anyone ever tried to trade based on news releases? I know the PIPCrawler does it but I haven’t had much success. Basically it should work by setting up a long and short position before the news release, so if it’s good news your long will be triggered, and if its bad news the short will be triggered.But I keep getting stopped out
(At Least I learned that I need to start using stops)

I’ve analysed several currencies before news releases and most always move by 40 to 100 pips a day after the release. The only problem is knowing whether the news will be good or bad.
I’ve looked at trends in charts before these same releases and they seem to stick to the trends no matter what the news is, has anyone ever looked into this?