Hi, im about to go “live” soon, on my demo account when i trade non-farm-payrolls everything is fine,there is no slippage. Has anyone had a bad experience with slippage during nfps with their live account? im going to open an account with alpari-uk mt5 ecn account. I should add the demo im practising on is metaquotes. cheers.
Well during NFP release spreads will always widen, in some cases I’ve seen 30 to 40 pips or more. You do NOT want to be trading during the release, but wait until after the numbers come out.
Why not I’ve made money even with slippages 
Mrquickbuy are you using ECN broker? I would love to know how much of a slippage you can get on ECN, because I was getting slipped on normal NDD accounts between 10-40 pips
I use an ECN and yes you’ll see slippage but it depends on the pair as to how much. What you have noted there sounds about normal but some of the less liquid/exotic pairs can be fairly extreme. There is slippage but also be aware of how wide spreads can get taking out stops when holding a pair, for example earlier this year I was holding GBPNZD during a NFP with my stop around 75pips from the spot price. My trade was stopped and within seconds the spread narrowed back down to a point where the spread, and the price for that matter, were back to the pre-announcement level and from there proceeded in the direction I had my trade. The tick data showed a spread of near 150 pips when I was stopped out and to say I was annoyed would be an understatement.
Jimmeh thanks for the reply How would you say what are the slippages on GBPUSD and spot Gold during NFP if you have that data? I like to straddle those two during NFP
Personally, I only enter with half my risk because there may be slippage/widened spreads. It always happens during larger news events, especially NFP.
I suggest you do something similar in order to minimise your risk, otherwise you may find yourself on the wrong side of a trade and losing your money.
Yes I know that
I think that Mrquickbuy Is obviously mistaken. I’ve been trading nonfarm payrolls on the euro dollar for three years and I have never not seen slippage or spreads widen to 27 or more pips. I use a ECN broker that has multiple data feeds to ensure I get the best bid ask. My advice to aspiring traders is to not trade on NFP Friday at all. It’s probably the one day of the month that aspiring traders are most likely to blow up their account therefore they should avoid that they completely. I know it’s tempting because the market can move fast and there’s that lure of quick money that’s why like trading it myself but I have developed strict discipline in my trade execution something that and aspiring trader will likely not have done. Therefore when they see the market taking off though just want to jump in on the direction they think it’s going to move in other reversal will likely wiped them out.
I guess what im trying to say is when you place an order at market does it actually get filled at the rate you want it to, or is it always inaccurate because of high volatility? i’ve heard ecn is “instant execution” so yes spreads widen etc but does your order get filled immediately? I can put up with wider spreads but i do want my order to be instant at the price i say and not be at a completely different price from what i wanted it to be. would like to know more, thanks everybody.
yes i will be using an ECN broker when i go live in about 6 weeks. I ll let you know.
I agree, I would not put on a huge position because i’ve seen price shoot up or down a lot before actually going the “right” way in relation to the data just released.
To be honest I couldn’t give you an accurate answer sorry as it would depend on the month and the various specifics influencing the market at the time and also would vary from broker to broker depending on who their liquidity providers are. My tick data is not stored that far back due to the sheer volume of it so I would need to look around the time of the event. It would not be anywhere near my GBPNZD spread experience though! 
Many platforms will allow you to show both bid and ask lines on your chart at the same time so this may allow you to see the spreads in live time at the next announcement, or hopefully your broker has tick data which will allow you to look straight after NFP’s to see what happened but remember the register of a tick is not necessarily showing what the extreme of the bid or offer got too.
There will still be a time differential between you hitting Buy or Sell, which will be at market, and your order getting filled and this can be delayed longer at extreme times so yes you will get slippage. On a big news event, price will gap instantaneously however many pips, taking whatever in between. To counter this your broker/trading platform should hopefully have a function that you have permanently set as a “maximum slippage amount”.
Are you sure your about ready to start trading a live account because it seems as though you don’t understand basic order fill. In a nutshell you place an order to get filled out the market you’re going to get filled at the market if the spreads are narrow and volatility is low your likely although there is no guarantee to get filled at the price you’re looking at on your level I quote screen. However, when volatility as high spreads widen for everyone and when you place an order to get filled at the market you may get filled at 20 pips or more away from the price that you see on your screen. Because by the time you place your order and that order goes through your broker server and gets filled that few milliseconds the spreads can change dramatically. You can complain you got a bad fill but reality is you got just what you ask for which is to get filled at the current market price. The same goes for you when you close your position. If you’re close order says fill at the market your order may go in when price reaches a certain level and end up getting filled far less than what you seen on your quote screen. Aspiring traders in my opinion should never never did I say never? Have an open order going into a major news event. And don’t think a limit order will save you chances are this actually made make your lost even worse as your order would end up not getting filled at all when the market makes a dramatic turn against you. I trade every major news event and I profit from most all of them. But I’m been doing this long enough to be very intimate with the instruments that I’m trading and how my orders will be filled when I place them. Anyone just starting out trading needs to stay away from periods of high volatility it should be considered your enemy that you should absolutely avoid. Allen
I understand what your saying but if its okay on a demo account and i profit every time then why wouldnt it work on a live account? the only way i will see is if i just do it live. just hoping there isnt too much of a delay between pressing buy or sell and the order actually getting filled.
what is an acceptable amount of slippage and what is unacceptable when nfps is announced?
Well for me acceptable is anything up to 20 pips on majors and gold, anything above that is well unacceptable but calculated risk
which broker do you use miliardo?
None at the moment…used NordFX but their customer support is terrible…will try and look for a ECN one
im gonna go with alpari uk they have ECN and they dont charge commissions.