XABCD News Pro Documentation

How To

Documentation of the XABCD News Pro

Table of Contents

Introduction

The XABCD News Indicator (shown in NinjaTrader as XT News Pro) plots the economic calendar directly on your chart for NinjaTrader 8. It draws a line at each scheduled event, shades a buffer zone around it, counts down to the next release, and shows the actual result the moment it lands ... plus a full alerting system, a breaking-news headline monitor, and a companion XABCD News window for managing everything.

  • The chart indicator ... add XT News Pro to any chart and it overlays the relevant events, a live countdown, beat/miss result badges, and an optional scrolling headline ticker.
  • The XABCD News window ... a five-tab manager (Calendar, Lines & Priorities, Alerts, Breaking News, Chart Overlays) where you pick events, tune colors and priorities, review alerts, and configure the breaking-news feed.
  • Alerts & breaking news ... advance pre-alerts before each event, audio and text-to-speech, on-screen toasts, and a keyword-driven breaking-news monitor that watches live news feeds.
The indicator and window are driven by a shared economic-calendar feed that updates automatically in the background. New actual results flow onto the chart on their own ... you do not need to reload the chart to see a number appear. The News Indicator also requires a valid license key the first time it loads (see Licensing).

Most of the display behaviour is shared across priorities and configured once in the News window, so the sections below cover those settings in one place rather than repeating them per event.

Back to Table of Contents

How News Pro Works & Conventions

A few ideas run through the whole product. Understanding these first makes every setting below easier to place.

ConceptHow it works
Two places to configure The chart indicator has a short property list in its NinjaTrader dialog (Show all / selected events, text placement, date range, the "no news" notice). Everything else ... colors, priorities, alerts, countdown, badges, ticker, breaking news ... lives in the XABCD News window and is honoured by the indicator on the chart.
Global vs local settings By default the indicator reads the global priority settings from the News window, so one place controls every chart. Turn Use Global Settings off on a chart to give that chart its own per-priority colors and options instead.
Mouse-driven The News Indicator has no chart hotkeys. You interact with it by hovering a line (it highlights), clicking to open the history panel, and using the News window. Marking events for alerts is done with the star ("Active Alert") checkbox in the Calendar tab.
Persistence Your selected events, colors, priorities, and alert settings are saved and restored automatically. Breaking-news matches and breaking event lines also survive a NinjaTrader restart.

Impact Levels & Priorities

Every event carries an impact level. There are five, ranked highest to lowest:

LevelDefault colorNotes
BreakingRedHighest priority. Always drawn, regardless of your filters. Comes from the breaking-news monitor.
HolidayLime GreenMarket holidays. Holidays never drive the countdown or "next event".
HighDeep PinkHigh-impact scheduled releases.
MediumDark OrangeMedium-impact releases.
LowYellowLow-impact releases.

Each level (or "priority tier") is switched on or off with its own Is visible toggle rather than a single "minimum impact" dropdown. Hide the Low and Medium tiers, for example, and only High, Holiday, and Breaking events draw.

Currency Matching

Each event is tagged with the currency it affects (USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, and so on). That is how the indicator decides which events belong on your chart:

  • Show all events (default) ... every country's events are eligible, subject to your priority and date filters.
  • Currency matching ... turn both "Show all" and "Show selected" off, and the indicator shows only events whose currency appears in the chart instrument's name (so USD events on ES/NQ, EUR events on 6E, and so on), plus any event scoped to "ALL".
  • Show selected events ... shows only the events you personally starred in the Calendar tab.

Pro vs Free at a Glance

This document covers XT News Pro. The free edition (XT News Free, "XABCD News Community") plots event lines and offers a read-only feed viewer, but does not include pre-alerts, audio or text-to-speech, the Alerts tab, breaking news, or country/priority/date filtering. See News Free vs News Pro for the full comparison.

Back to Table of Contents

Getting Started

Adding the Indicator

Add XT News Pro to a chart the same way as any NinjaTrader indicator: right-click the chart, choose Indicators, find XT News Pro in the list, and add it. Once added, the relevant events for that chart's instrument appear as vertical lines, and (by default) a countdown chip and result badges show alongside them.

Opening the XABCD News Window

Open the manager window from the NinjaTrader Control Center menu: XABCD Suite → XABCD News. The window opens on the Calendar tab and is 800×600 by default (resizable). This one window drives the chart display on every chart using global settings.

Licensing

The News Indicator validates your license when it loads. If your key has not been entered yet, a small XABCD News License window prompts you to paste it in and click Submit. Until a valid key is accepted, the XABCD Suite menu does not add the News entry and the indicator simply draws nothing on the chart (there is no red error banner). Once your key is accepted, reload the indicator and everything appears. Full details are in Saving, Persistence & Licensing.

Back to Table of Contents

On-Chart Display

These are the elements the indicator draws on your chart. Each one can be tuned in the News window; the defaults give you lines, a countdown, and result badges out of the box.

Event Lines

The core of the indicator: a vertical event line at each event's scheduled time, colored, dashed, and weighted by that event's priority tier. Lines draw only for tiers that are visible and events that pass your date and past-events filters. Breaking events always draw in red.

Options

  • Line color, dash, width (optional) ... set per tier ("Line Style / Line Color / Line Width") on the Lines & Priorities tab. Default width is 2px (Breaking 4px).
  • Line opacity (optional) ... per tier on the same tab.
  • Which tiers draw (optional) ... each tier's Is Visible toggle.
  • Hover highlight (optional) ... hovering a line highlights it in the Hover Color set on the Chart Overlays tab.

Examples

  1. High-impact only: Hide the Low and Medium tiers so the chart shows only the events that move price.
  2. Style by impact: Give High events a thick solid line and Low events a thin dotted one so importance reads at a glance.

Back to Table of Contents

Buffer Zones

A buffer zone is a translucent shaded band around an event line, a set number of bars wide on each side, tinted in the tier color. It marks the window of expected volatility around a release.

Options

  • Show buffer (optional) ... per tier ("Show Buffer"), on by default.
  • Buffer bar count (optional) ... how many bars each side of the line the band spans (default 2; Low tier default 1).
  • Buffer opacity (optional) ... 0 to 100 (default around 20).

Examples

  1. Avoid the release: Widen the buffer on High events so you can see the no-trade window forming ahead of the number.
  2. Keep it subtle: Drop the opacity to 10 so the band frames the event without covering candles.

Back to Table of Contents

Four-Corner Event Text

The event's country, title, and impact are shown as a text label in a corner of the chart. Stacked events share the corner, one per line.

Options

  • Text placement (optional) ... on the indicator dialog: Top Left (default), Bottom Left, Bottom Right, or Top Right.
  • Font & color (optional) ... each tier has its own Event Font and Event Font color on the Lines & Priorities tab.

Examples

  1. Out of the way: Place the text in the bottom-right corner so it never sits over your price action.
  2. Readable at a distance: Bump the High-tier font size so the events that matter most stand out.

Back to Table of Contents

Countdown Timer

The countdown timer is a rounded chip showing the next upcoming visible event and the time until it, for example Non-Farm Payrolls (USD) in 28h 51m. It updates every second and is colored by the event's impact. Holidays are skipped, so the countdown always points at the next event that actually matters.

Options

  • Enable (optional) ... "Show countdown to the next event on the chart" on the Lines & Priorities tab (on by default).
  • Show country (optional) ... append the country name in brackets (on by default).
  • Position (optional) ... one of six corners/edges (default Top Right).
  • Font size, padding, background opacity, corner radius (optional) ... sliders on the same card.

Examples

  1. Session dashboard: Put the countdown top-center so you always know how long until the next release.
  2. Transparent look: Drop the background opacity for a text-only countdown.

Back to Table of Contents

Event Badges (Beat / Miss Dots)

When a result is released, an event badge appears next to its line: a compact pill that can show a BEAT or MISS surprise label and a short-term price-impact read. The moment a fresh actual value arrives, its badge briefly flashes a pulsing "NEW" tag and reveals itself, so a new number is obvious without reloading the chart.

To keep a busy calendar readable, badges are hidden by default and shown only for the next upcoming event, an event whose line you have selected, or an event currently flashing a fresh result. Adjacent lines stagger their badges so text never overlaps.

Options

  • Position (optional) ... Top, Bottom (default), or Off (hides badges entirely). Set under "Event Badges (Dots)" on the Lines & Priorities tab.
  • Beat / Miss colors (optional) ... Beat Color (default green) and Miss Color (default red).
  • Badge font size, background opacity (optional) ... on the same card.

Examples

  1. Result at a glance: Leave badges on Bottom so each released number shows green for a beat or red for a miss.
  2. Clean chart: Set Position to Off if you only want the lines and countdown.

Back to Table of Contents

Historical Event Insight

Historical Event Insight adds a small beat/miss track record to an event line. A compact badge shows a row of colored dots (green for past beats, red for past misses) and a beat-rate percentage; clicking the line opens a detailed panel with the magnitude of recent surprises.

Options

  • Show beat/miss badge (optional) ... on the Chart Overlays tab.
  • Show detailed history panel on click (optional) ... opens the expandable panel.
  • Max releases (optional) ... how many past releases to summarize (3 to 12, default 8).
  • Font size (optional) ... 8 to 18.

Examples

  1. Track a release: See at a glance that a given report has beaten expectations 7 of the last 8 times.
  2. Dig deeper: Click the line to open the panel and read the size of each past surprise.

Back to Table of Contents

News Ticker Bar

The news ticker bar is a thin bar pinned to the bottom of the chart panel that scrolls breaking-news headlines right to left. It appears once breaking headlines have arrived and the ticker is enabled.

Options

  • Enable (optional) ... "Show scrolling news ticker at bottom of chart" on the Chart Overlays tab (on by default).
  • Scroll speed (optional) ... 0.5x to 5.0x (default 1.5x).

Examples

  1. Headline awareness: Keep the ticker on so breaking headlines from your feeds scroll past without leaving the chart.
  2. Slow it down: Lower the speed if headlines scroll by too fast to read.

Back to Table of Contents

The "No News" Notice

When the calendar has events but nothing draws on your chart, the indicator shows a "no news" notice ... a small card that explains exactly why and what to change. It names the specific reason: the feed is not loaded yet, nothing is starred while in Show-Selected mode, all priority tiers are hidden, the Date Range Filter excludes everything, no currency matches the instrument, all matching events are in the past with Display-Past-Events off, or the chart simply has not synced yet.

Options

  • Show 'no news' notice (optional) ... on the indicator dialog, on by default. Turn it off to suppress the card.

Examples

  1. Diagnose a blank chart: Read the card to learn that your Date Range Filter is set to "No History" and is hiding past events.
  2. After a fresh install: The card tells you the feed is still loading, so you know to wait rather than reconfigure.

See Troubleshooting for the full list of reasons and fixes.

Back to Table of Contents

Indicator Settings

These are the settings that live on the indicator's own NinjaTrader property grid (right-click chart → Indicators → XT News Pro). The list is intentionally short; everything visual is configured in the News window.

SettingDefaultWhat it does
Show all events On Every country's events are eligible (subject to priority/date filters). Mutually exclusive with "Show selected events".
Show selected events Off Shows only the events you starred (Active Alert) in the Calendar tab.
Text placement Top Left Which corner the event text label sits in (Top Left / Bottom Left / Bottom Right / Top Right).
Date Range Filter Last 7 days How far back to show past events: No History (future only), Last 24 hours, Last 7 / 14 / 30 / 60 / 90 days.
Show 'no news' notice On Shows the explanatory card when nothing draws (see above).
Use Global Settings On When on, the chart uses the global priority/color settings from the News window. Turn off to give this chart its own per-tier settings, which then appear under a "Priorities" group on the indicator dialog.

When Use Global Settings is off, four per-tier models (High / Medium / Low / Holiday Priority Events) become editable on the indicator itself. Each carries its own Line (color, dash, width), Is Visible, Show Buffer Zone, Display Past Events, Buffer Opacity, Buffer Bar Count, Alert Sound, Event Font, and Event Font color. These mirror the per-tier controls in the News window but apply only to that one chart.

If neither "Show all events" nor "Show selected events" is on, the indicator falls back to currency matching ... showing only events whose currency appears in the chart instrument's name, plus any "ALL"-scope events.

The News Indicator also ships a Market Analyzer column that reports the highest-priority event near each instrument, so you can watch upcoming news across a list of instruments at once.

Back to Table of Contents

The XABCD News Window

The XABCD News window (Control Center → XABCD Suite → XABCD News) has five fixed tabs. It is the control center for the whole product.

Calendar Tab

The economic calendar itself: a searchable, filterable grid of events. This is where you pick which events matter and star the ones you want alerts for.

Filter bar

  • Search box ... free-text filter on the event title.
  • Countries ... a multi-select checkbox list. Tick the currencies you care about; leave all unticked to show every country.
  • Date ... the date-range filter for the grid.
  • Impact ... filter by impact level.
  • Breaking ... show or hide breaking-news events in the grid.

Buttons

  • Select All / Unselect All ... star or un-star every visible event at once.
  • Update Events ... refresh the calendar from the feed and redraw it on your charts.
  • Save ... persist your selections.
  • Export Events ... export the visible events (each with its date/time and Actual / Forecast / Previous) to CSV or Excel.

Settings expander

  • Timezone ... the timezone the grid times are shown in.
  • Font Size ... grid font size (the row height auto-adjusts to match).
  • Auto-Select ... automatically star events that match your active filters.

Events grid

Columns, in order: Date, Time, Title, Country, Impact, Previous, Forecast, Actual, and an Active Alert checkbox. Ticking Active Alert stars that event: it becomes eligible for alerts and appears when the chart is in "Show selected events" mode.

Back to Table of Contents

Lines & Priorities Tab

The visual heart of the product. This tab holds the per-priority styling plus the on-chart overlay cards.

Alert timing (top of tab)

  • Alert retention (days) ... how long to keep alerts in the Alerts tab before auto-cleanup (default 30).
  • Advance alert lead times (minutes before) ... comma-separated minutes to warn you before an event, for example 5,3,1. Leave blank to alert only at event time.

Priority tiers

Five expanders, one per tier: High, Medium, Low, Holiday, and Breaking. Each tier exposes: Line Style, Line Color, Line Width, Line Opacity, Buffer Opacity, Buffer Bar Count, Alert TTS (read aloud), Alert File (sound), Alert Volume (0 to 100 with a Test Sound "Play" button), Show Buffer, Is Visible, Display Past Events, Alert Override (a distinct override color), and a Font sub-expander (family, size, bold, italic, color).

Overlay cards

  • Countdown Timer ... enable, show country, position, font size, padding, background opacity, corner radius.
  • On Chart News List ... top offset, background opacity, corner radius, padding.
  • Event Badges (Dots) ... position (Top / Bottom / Off), background opacity, Beat Color, Miss Color, badge font size.

Use Apply Settings to push changes to the chart and Save Settings to persist them.

Back to Table of Contents

Alerts Tab

A live feed of alerts that have fired, so you never miss a release that happened while you were away from the screen.

Header

  • Search ... filter alerts by event name.
  • Sort ... Newest first, Oldest first, Priority, or Name.
  • Filters ... a toggle that opens the filter panel.

Filter panel

  • Priority ... checkboxes for High, Medium, Low, Holiday.
  • Countries ... a multi-select list that fills in as alerts arrive.

The list

Alerts are grouped by day (Today, Yesterday, Earlier This Week, This Month, Older). Each card shows an unread dot, a priority icon, the event name, a second line of Time • Priority • Currency, a relative time ("5m ago"), and a 📍 button to drop a marker on the chart at that event's time. Left-click a card to toggle read/unread; right-click for Mark as Read, Mark as Unread, or Copy details. The status bar shows the unread count.

Footer

  • Export ... save the currently filtered alerts to CSV or Excel.
  • Mark All Read ... clear the unread state.
  • Clear All ... remove every alert from the list (with a confirmation prompt).

Back to Table of Contents

Breaking News Tab

The breaking-news monitor watches live news feeds for keywords you define and surfaces matches as chart events, ticker headlines, toasts, and audio. The tab is gated by a master Enable Breaking News Monitoring checkbox (off by default) and has four sub-tabs. See Breaking News below for the full walkthrough.

  • Monitor ... live dashboard: storm banner, sentiment heat bar, 1H/4H/24H sentiment sparklines, a keyword hit counter, and a Recent Matches feed.
  • Keywords ... your keyword rules, exclusion keywords, example packs, and auto-suggested keywords.
  • Sources ... the feeds being polled, a feed tester, and a raw headline preview.
  • Settings ... polling interval, webhook listener, time window, protection, TTS, storm/spike detection, and CSV history.

Back to Table of Contents

Chart Overlays Tab

Chart-only display options that are not tied to a single priority tier.

  • Line Hover Highlight ... the color a line turns when you hover it.
  • News Ticker Bar ... enable the scrolling headline ticker and set its scroll speed (0.5x to 5.0x).
  • Historical Event Insight ... show the beat/miss badge on event lines, show the detailed history panel on click, max releases (3 to 12), and font size.
  • Storm Detection ... enable news-storm detection and anomaly (spike) detection.

Reset to Defaults restores this tab's overlay settings; Save persists them.

Back to Table of Contents

News Alerts

News Pro fires alerts both before and at each event you have starred.

Advance & at-event alerts

  • Pre-alerts ... for each lead time you configure (default 5,3,1 minutes), an advance "Pre-warning" alert fires that many minutes before the event.
  • At-event alert ... when the countdown reaches zero, a final alert fires and is also written to NinjaTrader's native Alerts log.
  • Startup grace ... for the first minute after the indicator loads, no alerts fire, so you do not get a burst of stale pre-warnings on start-up.

Alert sounds

  • Master toggle ... Sound Alerts (on by default) enables or disables all audio.
  • Per-tier sound ... each priority tier has its own Alert File (WAV, chosen from your NinjaTrader sounds folder; default Alert1.wav) and Alert Volume (0 to 100). A Test Sound button plays it.
  • All sounds run through a single shared audio queue so they never overlap or clip.

Text-to-speech

Each tier has an Alert TTS toggle (off by default). When on, the event is read aloud (only for events that are actually drawn on a chart). TTS is briefly suppressed right after you save settings to avoid a burst of speech.

Toast pop-ups

Each tier can show an on-screen toast pop-up when its alert fires (on by default), titled "News Alert" with the event name and priority.

Retention

Alerts are kept for Alert retention (days) (default 30) and then cleaned up automatically; cleanup also runs when you change settings.

Back to Table of Contents

Breaking News

Breaking News turns live news feeds into on-chart events and alerts. You give it feeds to watch and keywords to look for; when a headline matches, it fires an alert, drops a red "Breaking" line on the chart, scrolls the headline in the ticker, and (optionally) speaks it aloud.

Enabling & Monitoring

Tick Enable Breaking News Monitoring at the top of the Breaking News tab (off by default). The Monitor sub-tab is your live dashboard:

  • Storm banner ... a red banner that appears only during a "news storm" (many alerts firing rapidly).
  • Sentiment heat bar ... a bar split into bullish / neutral / bearish segments based on recent keyword matches.
  • Sentiment sparklines ... 1 Hour, 4 Hours, and 24 Hours trend lines of bullish-versus-bearish balance.
  • Keyword Hit Counter ... a table of each keyword's hits Today, this Week, and All-time, plus when it last triggered.
  • Recent Matches ... a live feed of matched headlines; double-click a row (or use its View button) to open the article.

Feed Sources

On the Sources sub-tab, the Feed Sources grid lists every feed being polled with its On state, Name, URL, Type, Health, and last poll time (ms). Supported feed types are RSS, JSON URL, Webhook, Discord, and Telegram (Discord and Telegram need a bot token and channel ID; RSS and JSON use a URL).

  • + Add / Remove ... add a source (fill in the name and the type-appropriate fields) or remove the selected one.
  • Test Selected Feed ... fetches the feed once and reports how many headlines it found and a sample, so you can verify a URL before relying on it.
  • Raw Feed Preview ... the newest raw headlines from all sources (double-click to open).

The global Poll interval (default 30 seconds) is set on the Settings sub-tab; each source also respects its own minimum interval so no feed is polled too aggressively. Slow or failing feeds are flagged in the Health column.

Keyword Rules

On the Keywords sub-tab, the Keyword Rules grid defines what to watch for. Each rule has:

  • On ... enable/disable the rule.
  • Pattern ... the text to match (case-insensitive substring, or a full regular expression when Regex is ticked).
  • Group ... a label to organize rules (default "General").
  • Sentiment ... Neutral, Bullish, or Bearish, which drives the heat bar, sparklines, and spoken text.
  • Regex ... treat the pattern as a regular expression.
  • CD (min) ... cooldown minutes; repeat matches within this window are suppressed (default 5).
  • Protect ... arm trade-protection on a match (see News Protection).

Below the rules, Exclusion Keywords suppress false positives before matching (for example, exclude "fedex" so it does not trip a "fed" rule). Populate Examples loads a starter pack of keywords, exclusions, and RSS feeds. Auto-Suggested Keywords surfaces frequent words from your feeds that you have not added yet, with buttons to refresh the list and add selected words.

Storm & Spike Detection

On the Settings sub-tab (and mirrored on the Chart Overlays tab):

  • News Storm detection (on by default) ... when a threshold number of alerts (default 5) fire within a window (default 30 seconds), storm mode activates: a distinct banner, toast, and sound.
  • Headline volume spike detection (on by default) ... fires a storm-style alert when a single source returns far more headlines than its recent average (default 3x, measured over the last 10 polls).

Webhook Listener

The Webhook listener (off by default) lets external tools push a headline straight into the alert pipeline. Enable it and set a Port (default 18119); it listens on localhost only. A POST with a JSON body containing a title/headline field is injected as a breaking headline and fires an alert directly.

Time Window

Enable Only monitor during these hours to restrict polling to a session window (From / To, in 24-hour format, default 08:00 to 17:00). Overnight windows that cross midnight are supported. Outside the window, polling pauses.

Match History & Sharing

  • Export matched headlines to CSV ... when on, every match is appended to a history CSV (Timestamp, Headline, Source, Keyword, Group, Sentiment). An Open History CSV button opens the file.
  • Import Pack / Export Pack ... share your keyword rules, exclusions, and sources as a single JSON file, so you can move a setup between machines or share it with others.
  • Test Alert ... fires a sample alert so you can confirm your sounds, toasts, and ticker are working.

On-Chart Breaking Output

A matched headline becomes a red Breaking event line on the chart, prefixed with a lightning icon (a spiral icon during a storm). Breaking lines are the highest priority, always draw regardless of your filters, and survive a chart reload or NinjaTrader restart. Headlines also scroll across the news ticker bar.

Back to Table of Contents

News Protection

News Pro can arm trade protection around news, but the actual position actions are carried out by the XABCD Position Tool (sold separately), which has its own News Protection engine that reacts to the Breaking / high-impact events this indicator produces.

  • In News Pro, the Global trade protection on any match toggle and the per-keyword Protect flag mark a match as protection-worthy.
  • In the Position Tool, News Protection then performs the configured action ... block new entries, cancel pending orders, move the stop to breakeven, reduce the position by a percentage, or close positions ... within a window around the event.
If you use News Pro on its own, the Protect settings simply tag the event; add the XABCD Position Tool to the same chart to have those protections actually execute on your trades. For the full protection workflow, see the XABCD Position Tool documentation.

Back to Table of Contents

Filtering & Matching

Several filters combine to decide which events appear on a chart. If a chart looks emptier than expected, walk this list:

FilterWhereEffect
Show all / selected / currency-matchIndicator dialogThe top-level scope: every country, only starred events, or only your instrument's currency.
Priority tier visibilityLines & Priorities (or indicator)Each of High / Medium / Low / Holiday / Breaking can be hidden with its Is Visible toggle.
Date Range FilterIndicator dialogHow far back past events show (No History = future only).
Display Past EventsPer tierWhether a tier keeps showing its events after they have passed.
Country / Impact / searchCalendar tabNarrow the grid (and, with Show Selected, which events you star).

Remember two special behaviours: Holiday events never drive the countdown, and Breaking events ignore these filters and always draw.

Back to Table of Contents

Colors, Priorities & Fonts

Color is organized by priority tier. Every tier (High, Medium, Low, Holiday, Breaking) carries its own:

  • Line ... color, dash style, and width, with a separate line opacity.
  • Buffer ... opacity and bar count for the shaded band.
  • Font ... family, size, bold/italic, and color for the on-chart event text.
  • Alert ... sound file, volume, TTS toggle, and an optional Alert Override color.

The default tier colors are Breaking red, High deep pink, Medium dark orange, Low yellow, and Holiday lime green. Beat/miss result colors are set separately (green beat, red miss) under Event Badges. All of this lives on the Lines & Priorities tab, and applies to every chart when Use Global Settings is on.

Back to Table of Contents

The News Feed & Data

News Pro reads its economic calendar from an XABCD-hosted feed that is refreshed automatically in the background. You do not manage the feed yourself; a few things are worth knowing:

  • Coverage ... the feed carries this week and next week plus a rolling archive of settled past events, so both upcoming and recent history are available.
  • Currency tagging ... each event is tagged with the currency it affects (USD, EUR, GBP, and so on), which is how currency matching maps events to your chart's instrument.
  • Live actuals ... around a scheduled release the indicator refreshes itself and pulls in the actual number as it settles, flashing it onto the chart with a "NEW" tag ... no manual reload required.
  • Fields ... every event provides its date/time (in your selected timezone), country/currency, impact, title, and the Actual / Forecast / Previous values.

Use Update Events on the Calendar tab any time you want to force a refresh and redraw.

Back to Table of Contents

News Free vs News Pro

There are two editions. This document covers Pro; here is how the free edition differs.

FeatureNews Free (XABCD News Community)News Pro
Event lines on chartYesYes
Event coverageRestricted free feedRoughly 3x more events, plus history
Feed viewer windowRead-only single-tab listFull five-tab manager
Pre-alerts & audio alertsNoYes
Text-to-speechNoYes
Alerts tabNoYes
Breaking News monitorNoYes
Show-selected / country / priority / date filteringNo (basic show-all only)Yes
Countdown timer, badges, ticker, history insightNoYes
Market Analyzer columnNoYes

The free indicator shows an upgrade note pointing to Pro for "3x more news, pre-alerts and audio alerts, selected events only, filter based on country, priority, etc." In short, Free is a chart line-plotter plus a static feed viewer; Pro adds all of the alerting, breaking news, and filtering.

Back to Table of Contents

Saving, Persistence & Licensing

  • Persistence ... your starred events, colors, priorities, alert settings, and breaking-news configuration are saved and restored automatically. Breaking-news matches and breaking event lines survive a NinjaTrader restart.
  • Apply vs Save ... on the Lines & Priorities tab, Apply Settings pushes changes to the chart immediately; Save Settings persists them for next time.
  • Licensing ... the News Indicator validates your license when it loads. If no key has been entered, an XABCD News License window prompts for it (paste the key and click Submit). Until a valid key is accepted, the XABCD Suite menu does not add the News entry and the indicator draws nothing on the chart. Once accepted, reload the indicator to activate it.
There is no red on-chart "invalid license" banner ... an unlicensed indicator simply stays blank, and the only on-chart card you may see is the data/filter "no news" notice, which is about your event filters, not licensing.

Back to Table of Contents

Troubleshooting: Events but a Blank Chart

If the calendar has events but your chart is empty, the "no news" notice names the exact reason. Here is the full list and the fix for each:

ReasonFix
The feed is not loaded yetWait a moment after start-up, or click Update Events on the Calendar tab.
Nothing starred, but the chart is in "Show selected events"Star events in the Calendar tab (Active Alert), or switch the indicator to "Show all events".
All priority tiers are hiddenTurn on at least one tier's Is Visible toggle on the Lines & Priorities tab.
The Date Range Filter excludes everythingWiden the Date Range Filter (for example off "No History") on the indicator dialog.
No currency matches the instrumentSwitch to "Show all events", or trade an instrument whose currency has events.
All matching events are in the past with Display Past Events offEnable Display Past Events on the relevant tier, or widen the date range.
The chart has not synced yetRight-click the chart and choose Reload NinjaScript.

Other quick checks: confirm the indicator is licensed (an unlicensed indicator draws nothing), and confirm the News window shows events on the Calendar tab (if it does not, click Update Events).

Back to Table of Contents

XABCD News Indicator Documentation ... Indicator Version 1.7.0.45
For support and updates, visit XABCDTrading.com