The PRO blackout is one minute on each side of the print
FOMC, NFP, and CPI are the named events. On PRO you are flat in the minute before the release and you stay flat through the minute after it. A resting stop is still a position. If the account is supposed to be flat, the stop should already have been converted into a close, not left to the matching engine. The daily loss will accept the slipped fill at the price you actually got.
On $100,000 that daily loss is $2,200. A 30-point skip through an NQ stop is $600 on one contract, at $20 a point. Two contracts are $1,200. That is most of a morning, spent on an event the account was not allowed to attend. Bot controls need the pause loaded before the day, not toggled when the headline appears.
The Test can still lose the day without breaking the blackout
The written one-minute rule is attached to PRO. A Test account that is allowed to hold through CPI is not allowed to ignore $2,200. A stop that slips $1,400 on the Test is a legal trade and a badly damaged day. Four such surprises do not exist. The first one already consumed most of the hard daily loss, and the 3% trail is a separate ceiling at $3,000, marked at 5:00 PM ET during the Test.
Consistency during the five-day Test also cares about a huge green print. A CPI winner that is more than half of Test profit can fail the 50% share even though the blackout was a PRO rule. Flat into the number is the cleaner habit on both stages.
Slippage is a loss, even when the click was a stop
Traders argue that a stop is defensive so the fill should not count as trading the news. The daily loss does not grade intent. If the equity dropped, the drop counts. On PRO, being in the market during that minute is its own problem, beside the dollars. On either stage, a fill worse than the stop is still your fill.
Micro contracts shrink the same slip. Four MNQ on a 30-point skip are $240, because micro Nasdaq is $2 a point. One NQ on that skip is $600. The blackout does not change point value. It removes the reason to be in the large contract when the spread is widest.
Flatten before the minute, not inside it
Equity Guard at about $1,450 on a $100,000 day will catch a slip that runs, and it will not excuse a PRO account that was still open when the minute started. Close the position before the blackout. Use the guard as the backstop for a Test trade you intended to hold, with the cash risk small enough that a doubled stop still fits under $2,200.
The session still ends at 5:00 PM ET whether or not a speech runs long. Sign up on Venasri and attach the news pause to the PRO card specifically. A pause that only exists on the Test card will be absent on the morning the rule actually applies.
