Forex News Annotated Dataset for Sentiment Analysis

This dataset contains news headlines relevant to key forex pairs: AUDUSD, EURCHF, EURUSD, GBPUSD, and USDJPY. The data was extracted from reputable platforms Forex Live and FXstreet over a period of 86 days, from January to May 2023. The dataset comprises 2,291 unique news headlines. Each headline includes an associated forex pair, timestamp, source, author, URL, and the corresponding article text. Data was collected using web scraping techniques executed via a custom service on a virtual machine. This service periodically retrieves the latest news for a specified forex pair (ticker) from each platform, parsing all available information. The collected data is then processed to extract details such as the article's timestamp, author, and URL. The URL is further used to retrieve the full text of each article. This data acquisition process repeats approximately every 15 minutes.

To ensure the reliability of the dataset, we manually annotated each headline for sentiment. Instead of solely focusing on the textual content, we ascertained sentiment based on the potential short-term impact of the headline on its corresponding forex pair. This method recognizes the currency market's acute sensitivity to economic news, which significantly influences many trading strategies. As such, this dataset could serve as an invaluable resource for fine-tuning sentiment analysis models in the financial realm.

We used three categories for annotation: 'positive', 'negative', and 'neutral', which correspond to bullish, bearish, and hold sentiments, respectively, for the forex pair linked to each headline. The following Table provides examples of annotated headlines along with brief explanations of the assigned sentiment. 

Examples of Annotated Headlines

Forex Pair
Headline
Sentiment
Explanation

GBPUSD 
Diminishing bets for a move to 12400 
Neutral
Lack of strong sentiment in either direction

GBPUSD 
No reasons to dislike Cable in the very near term as long as the Dollar momentum remains soft  
Positive
Positive sentiment towards GBPUSD (Cable) in the near term

GBPUSD 
When are the UK jobs and how could they affect GBPUSD  
Neutral
Poses a question and does not express a clear sentiment

JPYUSD
Appropriate to continue monetary easing to achieve 2% inflation target with wage growth  
Positive
Monetary easing from Bank of Japan (BoJ) could lead to a weaker JPY in the short term due to increased money supply

USDJPY
Dollar rebounds despite US data. Yen gains amid lower yields  
Neutral
Since both the USD and JPY are gaining, the effects on the USDJPY forex pair might offset each other

USDJPY
USDJPY to reach 124 by Q4 as t