I’ve been thinking about something that probably affects a lot of traders here. When major economic news hits, spreads blow up everywhere. But how much does it actually hurt your bottom line with IC Markets specifically?
I’ve heard some traders say they avoid news entirely because the spread expansion makes it impossible to trade profitably. Others seem to trade through it and still make money. So either they know something I don’t, or they’re not calculating their real costs carefully.
The way I see it, a normally 1 pip spread that widens to 3 or 4 pips during news might still be tradeable if the rebate is decent and the volatility moves are big enough. But I need to know if IC Markets actually holds up or if the spreads blow out so bad that even the big moves don’t cover the costs.
Has anyone here actually measured how much IC Markets spreads expand during major news events like NFP, central bank announcements, or other high impact news? And more importantly, did you factor in how much the rebates actually help offset that expansion?
Spreads triple on news usually. Trade or skip entirely.
Biggest moves happen first minute. Spreads still tight then.
I trade news events regularly, and IC Markets handles them reasonably well compared to others. Here’s what I’ve observed:
Major news spreads on EUR/USD expand from 0.8 pips to 2.5 to 3.5 pips for roughly 30 to 60 seconds after release. The biggest moves happen in that window anyway.
The key insight: trade the first 30 seconds when volatility is highest but spreads haven’t fully exploded yet. After that initial spike, spreads tighten back toward normal within 2 to 3 minutes.
Rebates matter here significantly. A 0.3 pip rebate reduces your effective cost from 3.5 pips to 3.2 pips. Small difference, but on a 50 pip move, it counts.
My rule: only trade news if the expected move is at least 4 times the spread expansion. NFP with EUR/USD? Spreads might hit 3.5 pips, so I need at least 14 pips of movement to justify the risk. Usually happens.
I tried trading news events with IC Markets and had mixed results initially.
The spreads did expand significantly, but I noticed the platform itself stayed stable. Some brokers actually disconnect or slow down during major news. IC Markets didn’t have that issue.
The real lesson for me was that avoiding news entirely meant missing some of the biggest moves of the month. Instead of avoiding it completely, I just adjusted position size smaller and waited for the initial volatility spike to settle a bit before entering, even if it meant catching slightly smaller moves.
With rebates factored in, it became more manageable than I expected.
News spreads are always bad. Depends on the win size though.
Tested this deliberately with IC Markets during NFP releases for three months straight.
First few times, spreads hit 4 to 5 pips and I lost money because I didn’t size my positions correctly. The moves were big, but the costs ate everything.
What changed was I started using alerts. When news released, I watched the spread for the first 30 seconds to see how much it expanded. If I saw an immediate strong directional move and spreads were below 3 pips, I entered. If spreads stayed wide beyond 45 seconds, I skipped it.
IC Markets’ rebates helped offset the costs on the trades that won. Over three months, about 60% of my news trades were profitable using this approach.
The platform handled it fine. Execution was fast. The real issue was my position sizing and entry timing, not IC Markets itself.