Yes. News trading is not on the Upcomers prohibited-strategies list, and no rule requires you to be flat before or after a release. You are free to hold or open a position across a high-impact economic release (FOMC, NFP, CPI). The funded rules that govern your account (the trailing drawdown, the daily drawdown, and the max trade loss, 1.5% or 2% on Thunderbolt Legacy) apply the same way during a news event as they do at any other time. Any slippage or widened-spread cost from a release is part of that risk and is not reimbursed.

For context, across the futures prop industry there are three common models, so you know what you might see at other firms:

Upcomers uses the fully-allowed model: no flat window, no straddle ban. That freedom cuts both ways, so trade news conservatively and respect the risk below.

A high-impact release (rate decisions, jobs reports, inflation prints) can reprice a market in a fraction of a second. The practical effects you need to plan for:

Slippage. In the seconds around a release the book thins out. A market order, or a stop that has just triggered, can fill several ticks (sometimes many ticks) away from the price you saw. Your fill, not the screen price, is what hits your account.

Wider spreads. The gap between bid and ask blows out as liquidity providers pull quotes. Getting in and out costs more, and the mid-price can jump around before it settles.

Gaps. Price can leap over a range of levels with no trades in between. If your stop sits inside that gap, it does not fill at your level. It fills at the next available price on the other side.

Whipsaw. The first move after a release is often reversed within seconds. A position that looked right can be deep in the red before the market picks a direction.

This is the single most important point. A stop order is not a price guarantee. When it triggers it becomes a market order, and it fills at the best price available at that instant. In a fast, thin, news-driven market that price can be far from your stop level.

So a stop you placed to cap a loss at, say, 10 ticks can fill at 25 or 40 ticks in a violent release. On a funded account that gap can be the difference between a normal trade and a breach.

In extreme releases the exchange itself can pause or cap trading. Two things can happen on CME products:

A halt (pause). No orders match. You cannot get in or out. Your open position is frozen at whatever equity it had when the halt hit, and it stays frozen until the market reopens. Equity-index products (ES, NQ, YM, RTY and their micros) use market-wide circuit breakers; energy and metals (CL, MCL, NG, GC, MGC, HG) use short dynamic-circuit-breaker pauses.

A limit or locked state. The market stays open but cannot trade past a price band. If price is pinned at limit-down the bids at the limit can be exhausted, so your sell order may not fill even though the market is technically open. Any order priced beyond the band is rejected.

In both cases the protection you assumed you had may not execute. For the full mechanics see the article on price limits and circuit breakers.

The danger of news is not the news itself, it is what a fast adverse move does to the limits on your account. Here is where each product sits, with the dollar figures on a $50,000 account.

Trailing drawdown (Dynamic Risk Shield™). The trailing floor tracks your equity in real time and sits just below your equity high, so a sharp spike lower on a release can touch it and breach the account in that instant, before you can react. The trailing distance is 4% on Thunderbolt Classic and Legacy ($2,000 on a $50,000 account) and 3% on Vanguard ($1,500), and it applies the same way in the challenge and funded phases. The shield only moves up as you profit, then locks permanently at your initial balance once the account grows by the trailing distance. Until it locks, the floor stays close to your equity, so a fast adverse move on a release can still catch it.

Daily drawdown. Thunderbolt Classic and Vanguard cap your loss at 2% of account size ($1,000 on a $50,000 account), and Thunderbolt Legacy at 3% ($1,500). A single bad news fill can eat a large slice of that budget in one trade. The daily drawdown resets at 5:00 PM ET.

Max trade loss (1.5%, 2% on Thunderbolt Legacy). No single open trade may lose more than 1.5% of your account (2% on Legacy), which is $750 ($1,000 on Legacy) on a $50,000 account. This is a hard rule: exceeding it is an automatic breach and closes the account, even if your overall balance is still in profit. A same-instrument, same-direction position that you have split into several orders is counted as one trade for this cap. A stop that slips well past its level during a release can push a single trade past that limit in one fill.

Worked example. On a $50,000 account the daily loss limit is $1,000 (2% on Thunderbolt Classic or Vanguard) and the max single-trade loss is $750 (1.5%; on Legacy it is $1,000 at 2%). Say you are long two NQ contracts (E-mini Nasdaq-100) and a release gaps the market 80 ticks against you before your stop fills. At $5.00 per tick that is $400 per contract, so two contracts is $800 on one trade. That is already over the $750 single-trade cap and most of the daily budget, from one fill. That is how fast a news fill can cost you the account.

A common way traders try to play news is to place a buy stop above price and a sell stop below it, so one side fills whichever way the market breaks. This is called straddling a release, and it is one of the most widely banned practices in prop trading, even at firms that otherwise allow news trading.

Upcomers does not currently prohibit straddling, so it will not on its own get your account closed. But it is worth understanding why so many firms ban it: it is not a directional trade with defined risk, it is a bet on volatility. In a fast release both sides can fill on the whipsaw, spreads can gut the winning leg, and you can end up net down on a trade you thought was hedged. Treat it as one of the riskiest ways to trade news, not a free option.

If you choose to trade near a release, protect the account first:

Know the calendar. Check an economic calendar before your session so no major release surprises you while you are in a position. DXtrade includes an economic-calendar and news widget, so you can see upcoming high-impact releases without leaving the platform.

Size down or step aside. Smaller size, or flat through the release, is the simplest way to keep a bad fill from breaching your account. The micro contracts (MES, MNQ, MGC and the rest) let you take a fraction of the risk of the full-size contract.

Do not lean on a tight stop. Assume your stop can slip. Size the position so that even a slipped fill stays inside your single-trade cap and your daily budget.

Watch the 5:00 PM ET boundary and the Sunday reopen. Weekend and overnight news shows up as a gap when the market reopens. If you hold across those windows (Legacy allows weekend holds, Classic and Vanguard allow overnight holds), a gap on the reopen lands straight in your drawdown.

Allowed? Yes. News trading is permitted, it is not on the prohibited-strategies list, and there is no flat window before or after a release.

Straddling a release: not currently prohibited, but one of the riskiest ways to trade news.

Main risks: slippage, wider spreads, gaps, and possible halts or locked markets.

Why it matters: a slipped fill can breach the real-time trailing drawdown, blow past the daily cap (2% on Thunderbolt Classic or Vanguard, 3% on Legacy), or exceed the max trade loss (1.5%, 2% on Legacy).

Safest play: know the calendar, size down or stay flat, and never assume your stop fills at its level.

Not sure how a release affects your specific account? Start a chat from the help center or email us at [email protected] and we will walk through it with you.