FX TERMINAL · ACADEMY

Forex Fundamental Analysis Course

Why currencies move over weeks and months — interest rates, inflation, growth and central-bank policy.

Courses in Fundamental Analysis

• What Moves a CurrencyNearly every durable currency move traces back to one thing: a change in what the market expects a central bank to do. This course builds that chain from the ground up — from the interest rate differential, through the data that shifts expectations, to the releases you need to plan around.
• Inflation Data ReleasesInflation is the data family that moves currencies hardest, because it maps most directly onto what a central bank will do next. This course takes each inflation release on the calendar in turn — headline CPI, core CPI, PPI, PCE and the European prints — and explains what it measures, which component desks read first, and how the surprise reaches the exchange rate.
• Labour Market ReleasesCentral banks are judged on prices and on employment, which makes labour data the second great mover of currencies. This course covers every employment release worth knowing: non-farm payrolls, average hourly earnings, the unemployment rate, ADP, weekly jobless claims, JOLTS, the UK claimant count, and the Australian and Canadian employment prints — what each measures, how reliable it is, and how it reaches the exchange rate.
• Growth and Activity DataGrowth data tells you how fast an economy is running, which sets the backdrop against which every inflation and employment print is read. This course covers GDP, the manufacturing and services PMI surveys, the US ISM reports, retail sales, industrial production and consumer confidence — and, running through all of them, the trade-off between the timely surveys the market trades and the accurate hard data that arrives too late to matter.
• Policy, Trade and Housing EventsData changes what a central bank is expected to do; policy events are the bank answering. This course covers the rate decision and the documents around it, the trade and current-account releases that drive commodity and funding currencies, housing as the earliest read on whether policy is transmitting, and a closing lesson on turning the economic calendar into a weekly plan.

Lessons in Fundamental Analysis

• Interest Rates and Currency ValueIf you learn one fundamental concept, make it this one. Interest rate differentials explain more currency movement over months and years than every chart pattern combined.
• Inflation, CPI and the Rate PathCentral banks are mandated to control inflation. That single fact makes the inflation print the most consequential scheduled number in the currency market — and this lesson…
• CPI: Trading the Consumer Price Index ReleaseOnce a month a single line of a government spreadsheet reprices every currency pair on your screen. This lesson takes the CPI release apart — who publishes it, what is actually in…
• Core CPI MoM vs YoYEvery calendar prints core CPI twice — once month-on-month and once year-on-year — and traders routinely quote whichever one supports the view they already hold. This lesson…
• PPI: The Producer Price IndexPPI is usually filed under "second-tier data" and usually ignored. That is a mistake in one specific and very tradeable way: several PPI components feed straight into the…
• PCE: The Inflation Gauge the Fed Actually TargetsThe Federal Reserve’s 2% target is not defined on CPI. It is defined on the PCE price index — a different basket, a different formula and a different release. Understanding why…
• Eurozone HICP and UK CPIThe dollar is not the only currency with an inflation print. The eurozone and UK releases have their own quirks — a flash estimate assembled from national data that arrives first,…
• Non-Farm Payrolls: The Full AnatomyNon-farm payrolls produces more volatility per minute than any other scheduled non-policy release. Most traders read one number out of it. The release contains at least five that…
• Average Hourly EarningsAverage hourly earnings sits three lines below the payroll headline and is routinely the reason the dollar goes the opposite way to the job count. Wages are where the labour…
• The Unemployment RateThe unemployment rate is the most quoted economic statistic in the world and one of the most misread. It is a ratio, and a ratio can move because of its numerator, its…
• ADP Employment ChangeADP arrives two days before payrolls and is widely traded as a preview of it. That framing is out of date: ADP itself abandoned the goal of predicting NFP years ago and rebuilt…
• US Initial Jobless ClaimsEvery other labour indicator is monthly or quarterly and weeks stale. Jobless claims arrive every Thursday, cover a week that ended five days ago, and are barely revised. When the…
• JOLTS Job OpeningsJOLTS arrives with a two-month lag from a survey with a poor response rate, and by every normal standard should be ignored. It is not, because the Federal Reserve chose one ratio…
• UK Claimant Count ChangeClaimant count change sits at the top of the UK labour market release and gets most of the attention on the calendar. It is also the least reliable number in it. Knowing why — and…
• Employment Change: Australia and CanadaAustralia and Canada both publish a monthly net employment change, and both produce outsized currency moves relative to the size of their economies. They also share a specific…
• GDP Growth Rate QoQGDP is the definitive measure of economic output and it produces surprisingly modest currency moves. Understanding why teaches something general about the calendar: markets pay…
• Manufacturing PMIManufacturing is a small and shrinking share of a modern developed economy, yet its purchasing managers’ survey is one of the most watched releases on the calendar. The reason is…
• Services and Composite PMIServices are the large majority of a developed economy, and services inflation is the part central banks cannot wait out. Yet the services PMI is consistently treated as the…
• ISM vs S&P Global PMIThe United States is surveyed twice. The ISM and S&P Global PMIs cover the same economy in the same month and can point in opposite directions for a year at a time. This is…
• Retail Sales MoMConsumption is around two-thirds of a developed economy, which makes retail sales the closest thing to a monthly reading of the whole growth story. It also contains a specific…
• Industrial Production and Durable GoodsIndustrial production and durable goods orders are the hard-data counterparts to the manufacturing survey — actual output and actual orders rather than opinions about them. They…
• Consumer Confidence and Sentiment SurveysConfidence surveys ask people how they feel, and how people feel is a famously poor predictor of what they do. There is one exception inside these releases that matters enormously…
• The Interest Rate DecisionA rate decision is the single highest-impact scheduled event for a currency, and the number itself is almost never the reason. By decision day the market has usually priced the…
• FOMC Minutes and the Dot PlotBetween meetings, two documents can move the dollar as much as a decision does: the minutes, which reveal how the argument actually went, and the dot plot, which is the committee…
• Trade Balance and Current AccountTrade data rarely produces a memorable intraday move, which is why most traders skip it. Over longer horizons it is one of the few genuinely structural forces in currency markets…
• Housing Data: Permits, Starts and SalesHousing releases sit near the bottom of most impact rankings and are usually skipped. They deserve a place in a fundamental process anyway, because housing is the most…
• Turning the Economic Calendar Into a PlanKnowing what every release measures is worth very little if you still discover them mid-position. This closing lesson turns the whole course into a routine: how to build a week…

About these fundamental analysis lessons

This page collects everything in the FX Terminal Academy that deals with fundamental analysis: 5 courses and 27 lessons. The list is generated from the lessons themselves rather than maintained by hand, so it stays complete as the Academy grows.

Every lesson is free to read in full. Each one ends with a short quiz and links into the FX Terminal screen that applies it, so an idea can be checked against live market data instead of staying on the page. No account is needed to read; signing in only saves your progress and issues the completion certificate.

Where to start

Work through a course from the top rather than picking lessons out of it: the order is the point, and each lesson assumes the one before it. The lesson list below is there for when you already know the idea you are after.

Nothing here is investment advice. The Academy explains how the market works and how to read the data behind it; it does not issue signals or tell you what to trade.

Common questions

Are these fundamental analysis lessons free?

Yes, all of them, in full. There is no paywall, no trial and no card required, and the live terminal screens the lessons link to are free as well.

Do I need an account to read them?

No. An account is free and optional — it exists only to remember which lessons you have finished, carry that across devices, and issue a certificate when you complete a course.

Is a course better than reading the lessons individually?

For a subject you are new to, yes: a course orders its lessons so each one builds on the last. Read a single lesson when you already know which idea you want.

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