Reading the FX Patrol Terminal
Where each number comes from, and how to check it before you trust it
- Find the source and the timestamp on any panel
- Know which panels are live data, which are weekly, and which are curated
- Build the habit of checking freshness before you act on a number
Everything in the Beginner tier — value, GDP, inflation, rates, risk, themes — has to be read off *something*. This briefing is the tour of where each of those numbers lives in the terminal, and how to tell a fresh one from a stale one.
The terminal has no opinion
There is no directional call anywhere in FX Patrol. It does not tell you long or short, and it does not score itself, because it is not predicting anything. What it does is put the inputs in one place: prices, the calendar, the wire, rate paths, positioning, macro series and geopolitics. The read is yours to make. That is the whole design — you are the analyst; this is your screen.
Where each thing lives
Home — the market board, the live wire, today's events and the risk gauge: the morning glance. Macro — one currency at a time, with its rate path, positioning, surprises and news. Calendar — what is due and what just printed. News — the wire by desk. Central banks — the current rate, the meeting dates and the market-implied path. Indicators and yields — the series behind the story. Geopolitics — the map and the intel feed. Journal — your own trades.
Every panel carries a source and a time
Each panel labels where its number came from and when it was last fetched. That is not decoration: a price fetched four hours ago and a price fetched four minutes ago are different facts. Past a threshold, the label goes stale so you can see it has aged rather than quietly assuming it is current. Where a figure is genuinely missing you get *not available* — never a plausible-looking placeholder.
Recent fetch time on the panel. Source you recognise and could check yourself. Consistent with the other panels — the rate path, the calendar and the wire telling the same story.
Stale label or an old 'as of' time. A single panel disagreeing with everything around it. A weekly series (positioning) being read as though it were today's news.
Different feeds move at different speeds
The wire refreshes every couple of minutes. Calendar actuals land within minutes of the release. Prices and rate pricing run on a 15-minute cycle — useful for a read, useless as a tick feed, and the app does not pretend otherwise. CFTC positioning is weekly and published with a lag, so it tells you where the speculative community *was*, not where it is now. Macro indicator series update on their official release schedules.
A positioning panel shows a record net long and is labelled with last Tuesday's date. How should you read it?
- The terminal supplies inputs, not directional calls
- Every panel shows its source and the time it was fetched
- Stale is displayed, not hidden; missing data says 'not available'
- Feeds move at different speeds — wire in minutes, prices in quarter-hours, positioning weekly
- Check the timestamp before you act on the number
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