NinjaTrader Market Replay lets traders rewind and retrade real historical sessions tick by tick, making it possible to practice trading through high-impact news events like Consumer Price Index (CPI) reports and Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) releases without risking capital. If you've ever watched a CPI print or an FOMC announcement blow through your stop before you could react, you already know why this matters. Rehearsing those exact moments, again and again, can help you build the instincts a live news event demands.
What is Market Replay and how does it work?
Market Replay is a NinjaTrader feature that downloads historical tick data—the complete record of every trade price and size for a session—for a specific date and instrument, then streams it through your charts and Depth of Market (DOM) as though it were happening live. It connects through the Playback Connection, NinjaTrader's dedicated connection type for replaying historical sessions, which sits alongside your regular data feed and brokerage connections in the Control Center.
NinjaTrader Market Replay uses actual tick-by-tick historical data rather than a simulated price feed, so practice sessions reflect the real price behavior of past news events. That distinction matters: you're not watching a smoothed-out approximation of what happened. You're seeing the same prints, the same spread (the gap between the bid and ask price), and the same speed that traders faced in the live market.
Because Market Replay runs in a sim environment, you can pause, rewind, and adjust playback speed to study a release from multiple angles. For a closer look at how the feature works end to end, see our guide on practicing Market Replay with Playback Connection and our guide on Playback/Market Replay for step-by-step setup details.
Market Replay turns any past session, news events included, into a rehearsal space you can return to as often as you need.
Disclosure: Simulated trading is based on hypothetical results and does not reflect actual trading. Emotional and psychological factors of real money risk are not replicated. Use simulated trading to learn the platform and markets—not as an indicator of live performance.
Why big news events are so difficult to trade
Trading news events in futures looks nothing like trading on a quiet weekday. Big news events are difficult to trade because volatility, fast price movement, and wide spreads can trigger stops and slippage that don't appear in calm markets. Slippage is the difference between the price you expect on an order and the price you actually get, and it tends to spike in the seconds around a release.
CPI, FOMC, and Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP) reports can move futures contracts several points in a matter of seconds. Liquidity providers often pull back right before a release, which widens the spread and makes fills less predictable. A stop that would sit safely outside normal noise on a quiet day can get run over in an instant during a rate decision.
The same volatility that creates opportunity around news events also raises your execution risk, so a plan built for quiet markets usually isn't built for news. For more on how volatility behaves across a session, see trading futures during periods of high market volatility and how to use volatility as an indicator in futures trading.
That's the gap Market Replay is built to close: it lets you feel that speed before your own capital is on the line.
Setting up a Market Replay session around a news event
To practice a news event with NinjaTrader Market Replay, a trader downloads Market Replay data for the session containing the release, then replays it at or near real time to rehearse entries and exits. Here's how to set one up:
- Download the replay data. Expand the "Get Market Replay data" section, select your instrument and the date of the release you want to practice, then click OK. Note: Downloading Market Replay data isn't available while connected to Playback, and "Enable market recording for playback" (Options > Market Data) should be off first.
- Connect to the Playback Connection. In the Control Center, click the Connections menu and select the Playback Connection menu item.
- Open the Historical Data window. It opens automatically when you connect to Playback, or go to Control Center > Tools > Historical Data.
- Load your chart. Open a chart for the same instrument, then add your usual indicators and DOM setup.
- Set the Playback Control. Choose "Market Replay" under Playback Type, then set the Start and End Dates to bracket your target session.
- Adjust the speed and press Play. Use the Speed control to set your pace, then click Play to begin replay.
Running through this setup a few times can help make it feel like second nature, which matters when you want to spin up a fresh replay quickly before the next release.
Building a repeatable news-event practice routine
Practicing news events in NinjaTrader Market Replay can help traders build a repeatable plan for volatility—defining entry rules, stop placement, and position size before the event happens live. A one-off replay session can be useful, but the real value comes from turning it into a routine you repeat across multiple releases.
- Pick one release type at a time. Focus a full week of replay sessions on CPI, then move to FOMC, so you're comparing similar conditions.
- Write your rules down before you press play. Set your entry trigger, stop distance, and position size so replay tests a plan instead of a guess.
- Log each session. Note what worked, what got stopped out early, and where slippage showed up.
- Replay the same event more than once. A second or third pass at the same release often reveals details you missed the first time.
Pairing this routine with a broader practice plan can help. Our guide to futures paper trading using historical and simulated data covers how to structure practice sessions outside of specific news windows, and automating stops and targets with advanced trade management can help you build the same stop and target rules into your live orders once you've tested them in replay.
Repeating this routine, release after release, can help keep your practice consistent from one news event to the next.
What to focus on during high-volatility replay
Once you're inside a NinjaTrader Market Replay session, it can be easy to get pulled into watching price move and forget why you're there. Keep your attention on a short list of specifics instead.
- Watch your order execution speed. Note how long it takes for your simulated orders to fill once price starts moving fast.
- Check your stop placement. See whether your normal stop distance survives the initial spike or gets caught in the noise.
- Track spread behavior. Note how much wider the bid-ask spread gets in the first few seconds after the release.
- Review your position size. Check whether your usual size feels appropriate once you see the real speed of the move.
If your stop, size, or entry rules only work in calm conditions, replay can expose that quickly, which is exactly the point. It's also worth reviewing the best time of day to trade futures, since scheduled releases cluster around specific windows that are worth planning around.
The goal isn't to predict the next headline. It's to make sure your process can react to whatever the headline brings.
Carrying your replay practice into live news trading
NinjaTrader Market Replay practice builds familiarity, but it doesn't guarantee the same result once real capital and real emotions are involved. Treat your replay-tested rules as a starting point, then size down the first few times you trade a release live so you can confirm your plan holds up outside the sim environment.
Note: News events carry elevated risk once you're live, and no amount of replay practice guarantees the same result when real capital is on the line.
Keep the connection between practice and execution tight: the entry rules, stop placement, and position sizing you tested in replay should be the same ones loaded into your live orders, including any advanced trade management (ATM) strategies you use to manage stops and targets automatically. Our guide on practicing futures trading with sim trading is a good next step for building that bridge between rehearsal and live execution.
Treat every live news event as a chance to feed information back into your next replay session, so your routine keeps improving instead of standing still.
Ready to explore NinjaTrader Market Replay?
Open Your Free NinjaTrader Account TodayFAQs about trading news events with NinjaTrader Market Replay
Yes. Set your replay date to the session containing the release you want to study, then replay it at or near real time. Because Market Replay uses real historical tick data, you'll see the same price action, spread widening, and speed that occurred during the live event.
Not quite. Market Replay retrades a specific past session using real historical data, while a live simulated environment runs on the current, real-time data feed. Both let you practice risk-free, but Market Replay is built for studying a particular past event, while sim trading is better for practicing general strategy in today's market.
Select your instrument and set the replay date to the session that contains the release, then download the historical tick data for that date through the Playback Connection. Once downloaded, the data is cached locally, so you can replay the same session again without redownloading it.
Start with the releases that move your traded instrument the most. Trading CPI and FOMC futures around these releases is a good starting point for many futures traders, with NFP a close third. These reports are scheduled well in advance, so you can line up the exact session in Market Replay before the next live release.
Playback Connection is the NinjaTrader connection type that powers Market Replay. It streams downloaded historical tick data through your charts and DOM in place of a live data feed, which is what allows Market Replay sessions to look and feel like the real market did on that date.
