The evaluation and the funded book are different clocks
During the evaluation, ThinkCapital allows news trading. CPI, NFP, and FOMC can be on the calendar without a special blackout. The day you become funded, a two-minute window on each side of a red-folder event turns restricted. Traders who passed by trading the print often keep the same alarm. The rule they passed under is not the rule that pays them.
The slip is a separate test from the window. A stop that was legal, placed twenty minutes earlier, can still fill far beyond its price when the number hits. That fill counts against the daily loss at once. On Dual Step the day is 4%. On Lightning it is 3%. On $100,000 those are $4,000 and $3,000. The firm does not discount the wick because the spread blew out.
One gold lot can spend a quarter of the day on the print
XAUUSD pays about $10 per 0.10 move on 1.00 lot. A 1.00 lot position with a planned 50-pip stop risks $500, a tidy 0.50% on $100,000. If CPI runs the fill to 150 pips, that same lot costs $1,500. One ticket has used more than a third of a Dual Step day. At 1.45 lots, which is the top of a sensible gold band, a 70-pip planned stop is already $1,015 before any extra slip.
NAS100 at $1 per point is the other usual victim. A 6.25 lot position with an 80-point stop risks $500. A news whip that extends the fill by another 80 points doubles the loss to $1,000. Bot controls should be flat, or blocked from new entries, through the red-folder minute on a funded login. The evaluation can keep a planned news play only if the cash risk assumes the wide fill, not the calm spread.
Time the window off ThinkMarkets, not off the laptop
The daily reset is 00:00 ThinkMarkets server time, GMT+2 or GMT+3, using the higher of day-start balance or equity. The news window is a clock of its own, tied to the release time, and it wraps two minutes before and two minutes after. A flatten scheduled for 12:30 UTC can still be inside the window if the release is 12:30 and your buffer is short. Give the restriction the full two minutes on both sides, plus the time it takes orders to leave.
Holding a winner into the print is a close, and closes are restricted on the funded account inside that window. If you want the profit banked, close it before the two-minute mark. If you want the trade to survive the number, the stop has to be wide enough that a normal wick does not take it, and the cash at that wide stop has to fit inside the day. Those are the only two funded choices.
Flatten on cash loss, and stay out of the two minutes
Equity Guard on Dual Step should cut the book near $3,250 of daily loss on $100,000, before a news slip can walk the last $750 into the official $4,000. Lightning should sit near $2,250 against its $3,000 day. The guard does not make a forbidden entry legal. It limits the damage of a stop that was already on a ticket when the number hit.
Open a Venasri account and mark the login as evaluation or funded. The same ThinkCapital purchase changes news permission on the day the account is upgraded. A bot profile that traded CPI last month in the evaluation should refuse the entry this month if the account is now funded and the clock is inside the two-minute band.
