FOMC Meeting: What It Is and How to Read the Fed's Decision

Eight afternoons a year, a short statement from the US central bank lands at 2PM Eastern time, which is 6PM UTC in summer and 7PM UTC in winter. Within minutes, bond yields, stock indexes, the dollar and bitcoin can all move. The statement sets the short-term interest rate that many other US borrowing costs build on, so traders around the world plan their week around it.

Most of the time the decision itself is no surprise, because markets price the likely outcome days in advance. When the Fed raised rates on September 16, 2026, investors had already placed high odds on that exact move (source: Federal Reserve, minutes of the September 2026 meeting). Prices still swung hard that afternoon, because the details that come with the decision tell traders what the next meeting might bring.

Reading those details well comes down to knowing who decides, when each document arrives and which lines to compare with what the market expected.

What is the FOMC meeting?

The FOMC meeting is the regular gathering of the Federal Open Market Committee, the part of the US Federal Reserve that decides where to set short-term interest rates. Its 12 voting members choose a target range for the federal funds rate, and that decision steers borrowing costs across the economy and moves prices in almost every market.

The committee has 12 voters. Seven are the members of the Fed's Board of Governors in Washington, and one is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The other four come from the remaining 11 regional Fed presidents, who take turns on one-year terms (source: Federal Reserve, who we are). The remaining seven presidents attend every meeting and join the debate, so 19 people take part even though only 12 vote. The rotating seats come from four groups of regional banks, one president from each group, and the line-up changes at the first meeting of each year (source: Federal Reserve, FOMC page). In 2026 the rotating voters are the presidents of the Cleveland, Minneapolis, Dallas and Philadelphia Fed banks. In 2027 the seats pass to Chicago, Richmond, Atlanta and San Francisco, alongside New York's permanent seat.

The federal funds rate is the rate banks charge each other to lend overnight the money they keep at the Fed (source: Federal Reserve, FOMC page). Because banks agree that rate among themselves, the Fed sets a target range a quarter point wide and adjusts the rates on its own tools to keep trading inside that range. An important one is the interest it pays banks on the money they hold at the Fed, called the interest on reserve balances, or IORB.

The committee is led by the Fed Chair. Kevin Warsh took office as Chair on May 22, 2026, and also chairs the FOMC (source: Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh biography). Jerome Powell, who chaired the Fed from 2018 until Warsh took over, remains a governor (source: Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell biography) and a 2026 voter (source: Federal Reserve, FOMC page).

When are FOMC meetings?

The FOMC holds eight scheduled meetings a year, about one every six weeks, and can hold extra meetings when markets or the economy demand it (source: Federal Reserve, FOMC FAQ). Every 2026 meeting runs over two days, a Tuesday and a Wednesday, and the decision is published on the second afternoon.

The Fed publishes the year's dates well in advance on its meeting calendar. Four of the eight meetings, one at the end of each quarter, also come with the Summary of Economic Projections, which holds the well-known dot plot (source: Federal Reserve, meeting calendars). The Fed's events calendar lists the dates of the minutes still to come (source: Federal Reserve, events calendar).

Unscheduled meetings are rare and usually signal an emergency. On Sunday, March 15, 2020, as the pandemic spread, the committee met outside its calendar. It cut its target range to 0% to 0.25%, and the statement went out at 5PM ET (source: Federal Reserve, March 15, 2020 statement).

Before each scheduled meeting, officials go quiet. The blackout period starts at 12AM ET on the second Saturday before the meeting and ends at 11.59PM ET on the day after it. During that time, participants stop sharing their views on the economy or policy with the public, and they avoid predicting the decision (source: FOMC, policy on external communications).

The Beige Book is the other document to watch in the run-up. It is a summary of business conditions gathered by the 12 regional Fed banks from their contacts, published eight times a year (source: Federal Reserve, Beige Book). Every 2026 edition is scheduled two weeks before a decision day, from January 14 to November 25 (source: Federal Reserve, events calendar).

When is the next FOMC meeting?

The next FOMC meeting is on October 27-28, 2026. The decision comes out on Wednesday, October 28, at 2PM ET, which is 6PM UTC, and Chair Warsh's press conference starts at 2.30PM ET, or 6.30PM UTC (source: Federal Reserve, events calendar). This meeting has no new projections or dot plot, and its minutes are due on November 18.

The meeting comes after a hot inflation report. Consumer prices rose 0.6% in September and 3.7% over the past year, up from 3.4% in August. Prices excluding food and energy rose 2.6% over the year (source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, October 14, 2026). The 10-year Treasury yield stood at 5.12% on October 20, against 5.00% the day before the September hike (source: US Treasury, daily par yield curve rates). The minutes of the September meeting showed that most officials expected another increase "would likely be appropriate by year end" (source: Federal Reserve, minutes of the September 2026 meeting).

Markets priced an 85.1% chance of no change on October 28 and a 14.9% chance of a quarter-point hike, as of October 21, 2026 (source: CME FedWatch). Another inflation report, the PCE price index, follows a day later, on October 29 (source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis).

After October, the last meeting of 2026 is on December 8-9, with new projections. US daylight saving time ends on November 1 (source: NIST), so the December statement lands at 2PM ET but 7PM UTC, an hour later for traders who keep UTC time.

What happens on FOMC decision day

The decision arrives at 2PM ET on the meeting's second day, as a short statement and a separate implementation note. Half an hour later the Chair holds a press conference, and at four meetings a year the projections and dot plot come out with the statement. The minutes follow three weeks later.

The meeting itself starts on the Tuesday morning and wraps up on the Wednesday morning. The September 2026 meeting began at 10.30AM ET on September 15 and adjourned at 10.15AM ET on September 16 (source: Federal Reserve, minutes of the September 2026 meeting). That left a few hours to prepare the documents before the 2PM release.

You can watch the press conference live on the Fed's live video page, which the events calendar links for its press conferences, and the Fed also posts the videos on YouTube (source: Federal Reserve, live video).

The statement and the implementation note go out together. On September 16, 2026, the statement, the implementation note and the projections all came out at 2PM (source: Federal Reserve, September 16, 2026 press conference page). The minutes also come out at 2PM (source: Federal Reserve, September 16, 2026 press conference page), three weeks after each decision (source: Federal Reserve, meeting calendars).

The new settings take effect the next day. After the September 16 decision, the new interest rate on reserves applied from September 17 (source: Federal Reserve, September 16, 2026 implementation note). That is why rate-futures arithmetic counts the new rate from the day after a meeting.

How to read an FOMC statement, step by step

Read an FOMC statement in a fixed order: the rate range, the vote, the changes in wording, the implementation note, the projections when there are any, and then the press conference. The rate and the vote tell you what the Fed did, and the rest tells you how it sees the next meeting.

The September 2026 statement was only three short paragraphs, so the differences from the last one are easy to miss unless you work through it in a fixed order.

Step 1: Find the target range. The first paragraph says whether the committee raised, cut or kept the range, and by how much. On September 16, 2026, the committee raised it by a quarter point to 3.75% to 4.00% (source: Federal Reserve, September 16, 2026 statement).

Step 2: Check the vote. Since June 2026 the statement has opened with the tally, such as 12-0, and it names only those who voted against, with the move each of them wanted. On July 29, 2026, the vote to hold was 9 to 3, and all three dissenters wanted a hike (source: Federal Reserve, July 29, 2026 statement). Dissents for a hike signaled that support for higher rates was growing, seven weeks before the hike came. The full list of who voted for the decision appears later, in the minutes.

Step 3: Compare the wording with the last statement. Small changes carry the message. Say you have the July statement open beside the September one. In July, the committee wrote that inflation "remains elevated relative to the Committee's 2 percent goal," partly because of supply shocks in sectors including energy. In September it wrote that inflation "remains elevated" and added that "Today's policy action will support a timelier return" to 2%. The reference to supply shocks was dropped, and the statement tied the hike directly to bringing inflation back to 2%.

Step 4: Read the implementation note. It lists the rates the Fed uses to keep the federal funds rate inside its range, plus its instructions for the Fed's holdings of bonds. In July, the interest on reserve balances was 3.65% and the overnight reverse repo rate was 3.50% (source: Federal Reserve, July 29, 2026 implementation note). The reverse repo rate is what the Fed pays money-market funds and other firms that lend to it overnight. In September, the two rose to 3.90% and 3.75% (source: Federal Reserve, September 16, 2026 implementation note). Any change to the bond-buying lines is news in its own right.

Step 5: Check the projections, at the four meetings that have them. Look for changes in the median rate path and in how widely the dots are spread across officials.

Step 6: Listen to the press conference. The Chair explains the decision in plain words and takes questions, and a remark there can move prices all over again. Traders call a message that leans toward higher rates hawkish and one that leans toward lower rates dovish. In September, Warsh said he "would be hard pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive" (source: Fed, September 2026 press conference transcript). That hawkish line appeared nowhere in the statement.

Worked example: the September 2026 hike

Run the six steps on the September 16, 2026 release in one pass and every part of it points toward higher rates. The hike was widely expected, so the market's reaction hinged on everything else in the release.

Steps 1 and 2 gave a hike and a unanimous vote, a change from July's 9-3 split, since the three July dissenters now had the hike they had asked for. Step 3 showed the inflation wording getting firmer, and Step 4 showed every rate in the implementation note moving up by the same quarter point. Step 5 brought new dots, with most officials expecting one more hike in 2026. In Step 6, Warsh's line about financial conditions not being "restrictive" suggested the committee might keep going.

Bitcoin's path through that afternoon shows how the market can react differently to each part of the release. On BloFin's BTCUSDT Perpetual, bitcoin was 0.38% above its 2PM level by 2.30PM, then dropped to about 0.9% below it during the press conference, and ended the two hours 0.49% higher (source: BloFin). The SPYUSDT Perpetual, which tracks the S&P 500 fund SPY, ended the same two hours 0.73% lower. A hike that markets had already priced left bitcoin higher and stocks lower on the same afternoon.

How to read the Fed's dot plot

The dot plot is a chart in the Fed's Summary of Economic Projections. It shows where each official thinks the federal funds rate should be at the end of each of the next few years and over the longer run. Each dot is one official's view, and the median dot is the number most headlines quote.

Each dot marks the midpoint of the target range that one participant considers right for the end of that year (source: Fed projections, September 16, 2026). The median is the middle of the dots when they are lined up from lowest to highest, or the average of the two middle dots when there is an even number. The "longer run" dot is the rate an official expects the economy to settle at once shocks fade. The dots carry no names, and the Fed releases the individual projections only after five years, with numbers in place of names (source: Federal Reserve, FOMC historical materials).

The September 2026 chart had 18 dots, and reading where they sit shows how split the committee is. Say you count them for the end of 2026. The range was 3.75% to 4.00% after the hike, a midpoint of 3.875%. For the end of 2026, 12 dots sat at 4.125%, 4 at 4.375% and 2 at 3.875% (source: Federal Reserve, projection materials, September 16, 2026). Each quarter-point step above 3.875% is one hike, so 12 officials saw one more hike before year end, 4 saw two, and 2 saw none.

The medians tell the same story more briefly. The median rate for the end of 2026 rose to 4.1% from 3.8% in June. The 2027 median rose to 4.1% from 3.6%, and the longer-run median rose to 3.2% from 3.1% (source: Fed projections, September 16, 2026). When the whole path shifts up like that, traders read it as a committee planning to keep rates higher for longer.

The chart had 18 dots because Warsh chose not to submit a projection of his own, as in June (source: Fed, September 2026 press conference transcript). Dots are views, not promises. The September minutes record that officials approach each meeting with an open mind (source: Federal Reserve, minutes of the September 2026 meeting), and the dots can shift a lot from one quarter to the next.

What the FOMC minutes reveal

The FOMC minutes are the official record of a meeting, published three weeks after each decision at 2PM ET. They show the debate behind the vote: how many officials leaned toward a hike or a cut, what risks worried them, and what they expect to do next, which the three-paragraph statement leaves out.

The three-week gap has been the rule since December 2004, when the Fed sped up the release of its minutes (source: Federal Reserve, FOMC historical materials). Full word-for-word transcripts follow only after five years, so the minutes are the closest look at the discussion that traders get while it still matters.

The minutes of the September 2026 meeting, released on October 7, show what that looks like. They recorded that "most participants" expected another increase would likely be appropriate by year end, while stressing that decisions would depend on incoming data (source: Federal Reserve, minutes of the September 2026 meeting). Officials "generally assessed inflation risk as skewed to the upside", and several said the current rate was "not restrictive or only mildly restrictive". The minutes also confirmed what traders had seen: before the meeting, market prices and conversations with investors pointed to high odds of a quarter-point hike.

Say you read those minutes on October 7. The dots had already shown 16 of 18 officials expecting at least one more hike in 2026, but they gave no reasons. The minutes did. Officials saw inflation staying elevated with risks tilted to the upside, while the labor market looked near full employment. That told you the September hike was probably not meant to be the last.

Minutes can move markets because they arrive three or four weeks before the next meeting, when traders are setting their expectations for it. A record showing more support for a hike than traders assumed can shift the odds for that next meeting.

How markets price a Fed decision before it happens

Markets price a Fed decision through fed funds futures, contracts whose price reflects the average overnight rate traders expect over a month. Tools such as CME FedWatch turn those prices into the probability of each outcome at the next meeting, which is why a decision is often "priced in" days before it is announced.

A 30-day fed funds futures contract is priced at 100 minus the average effective federal funds rate that traders expect for that month (source: CME Group, FedWatch methodology). The effective rate is the typical rate on overnight loans between banks, published every day by the New York Fed. FedWatch compares the rate implied for the meeting month with the rate before the meeting, and assumes the Fed moves in quarter-point steps.

You can run the arithmetic yourself with the October 2026 contract. In the October 21 FedWatch reading, its mid price was 96.1163, which works out to an expected October average of 3.8837% (source: CME FedWatch). The effective rate was 3.88% on October 19 (source: New York Fed, effective federal funds rate). A hike on October 28 would take effect on October 29 and lift the rate by 0.25 points for the last 3 of October's 31 days, adding about 0.024 points to the month's average.

Implied chance of a hike = (rate the futures price implies − current rate) ÷ what a full hike would add.

That rough 15% sits close to the 14.9% hike probability FedWatch showed the same day. FedWatch's own calculation is more detailed, so the two numbers differ slightly. When an outcome carries high odds, as the September hike did, much of its effect is already in prices by 2PM, while a 15% outcome that comes true is a surprise. That gap between the price and the outcome is what how Fed rate hikes affect bitcoin explores for crypto.

Markets also tend to move before the announcement. A New York Fed study found that from 1994 to 2011, the S&P 500 rose 0.49% on average in the 24 hours before scheduled FOMC announcements (source: New York Fed, Staff Report 512). That was a far bigger move than in other 24-hour windows. The study found the rise in stocks but not in Treasury securities, and its data end in 2011, so it is history, not a rule for today's markets or for crypto.

How bitcoin trades around an FOMC decision

Bitcoin tends to swing more than usual in the two hours after the 2PM ET statement, but the direction changes from one meeting to the next. On all six 2026 decision days through September, bitcoin's two-hour trading range on BloFin was wider than its typical range for the same hours.

The figures come from the BTCUSDT Perpetual on BloFin, measured from 2PM ET on each decision day (source: BloFin). The two-hour range is the gap between the highest and lowest price, as a share of the 2PM price. The typical range is the median for the same 2PM to 4PM ET window on the 20 weekdays before each meeting.

Five of the six meetings ended with no change in rates, yet bitcoin moved more than usual on every one of them. The rate decision is only one part of what comes out that afternoon. The wording of the statement, the press conference and, in March, June and September, the dots all arrive in the same two hours, and the price data alone cannot show which of them moved bitcoin. On June 17, bitcoin dropped right after the statement, climbed back almost to its 2PM level early in the press conference, then slid to end 2.67% lower. On March 18 it was slightly up at 2.30PM and down by 4PM, a reminder that the first move after the statement is not always the one that lasts.

Bitcoin was lower at 4PM ET than at 2PM on five of the six days, but six meetings are far too few to call that a pattern. On any single afternoon, ETF flows or crypto news can matter more. Crypto portfolio correlation covers how closely bitcoin tracks stocks, and event risk in crypto sets out a plan for trading around scheduled events like this one.

To see one of these afternoons for yourself, open the BTCUSDT Perpetual chart, switch to 15-minute candles and scroll back to 2PM ET on September 16, 2026, which was 6PM UTC.

How to trade an FOMC day on BloFin

Trading an FOMC day means trading a known time with an unknown outcome, so set your position size and your exit before 2PM ET. Crypto perpetuals on BloFin trade around the clock, and the decision lands inside the regular hours for BloFin's stock perpetuals, so both stay fully open while the news breaks.

BloFin's stock perpetuals follow US regular trading hours, which run from 1.30PM to 8PM UTC during daylight saving time and from 2.30PM to 9PM UTC in winter. Outside those hours, trading in them may be limited to reduce-only orders, which can only shrink or close a position (source: BloFin, stock futures trading hours). A 2PM ET statement lands at 6PM UTC in October and 7PM UTC in December, inside regular hours both times. That means you can open or close positions on the SPYUSDT Perpetual and the QQQUSDT Perpetual as the statement comes out.

For the full list of stocks, funds, bonds and commodities with perpetuals on BloFin, see the TradFi assets you can trade on BloFin.

Size the trade from the move you can afford. Say you have 1,000 USDT and are willing to lose 1%, or 10 USDT, on the decision. Bitcoin's two-hour range on June 17 was about 3%, so a position of about 330 USDT loses roughly 10 USDT on a 3% move against you, because 3% of 330 is 9.9. Leverage shrinks the room for that swing: at 20x, a 3% move takes 60% of your margin, and how liquidation works explains what happens when the losses reach your maintenance margin.

A stop-loss limits the damage from a steady slide, but in the first minutes after 2PM the price can jump past your stop, and the order fills at the next available price. On June 17, bitcoin fell almost 2% within the first 15 minutes after the statement. How to set a stop-loss on BloFin covers placing one, and trading news volatility covers when waiting until after the press conference is the calmer choice.

Gold traders face the same afternoon, and trading gold around FOMC and CPI releases applies these ideas to the gold market.

If you would rather follow an experienced trader through a Fed week, BloFin's copy trading covers the BTCUSDT, SPYUSDT and QQQUSDT Perpetuals, and you set how much each copied trader can use. Read how to copy trade on BloFin before you start.

Looking to trade the next Fed decision? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the BTCUSDT Perpetual, SPYUSDT Perpetual or QQQUSDT Perpetual page, or browse the lead traders you can copy on BloFin.

Frequently asked questions

Who is on the FOMC in 2026?

The 2026 voters are Chair Kevin Warsh and Vice Chair John Williams of the New York Fed, plus governors Michael Barr, Michelle Bowman, Lisa Cook, Philip Jefferson, Jerome Powell and Christopher Waller. The four rotating regional presidents are Beth Hammack of Cleveland, Neel Kashkari of Minneapolis, Lorie Logan of Dallas and Anna Paulson of Philadelphia. Hammack, Kashkari and Logan dissented in favor of a hike in July 2026.

What is the difference between the Fed and the FOMC?

The Federal Reserve is the whole US central bank system: the Board of Governors in Washington and 12 regional Reserve Banks. The FOMC is the committee inside it that sets interest-rate policy. The Board on its own sets some rates, including the interest it pays on bank reserves. Alongside the September 2026 hike, the Board voted to raise that rate to 3.90%, so a single announcement covers both.

Is the Fed going to raise rates in December 2026?

Nobody knows until the decision on December 9, but market pricing and the Fed's own projections lean toward a hike. On October 21, 2026, CME FedWatch put a 76.7% chance on the target range ending the December meeting at 4.00% to 4.25%, one quarter point above the 3.75% to 4.00% range set in September (source: CME FedWatch). Counting every December outcome above the September range, the chance of at least one more hike by year end was 89.9% (source: CME FedWatch).

What time is the Fed announcement in UTC?

The statement always comes out at 2PM US Eastern time, so its UTC time shifts with US daylight saving time, which runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. That puts it at 6PM UTC in summer and 7PM UTC in winter. In 2027, the January 27 decision lands at 7PM UTC and the March 17 decision at 6PM UTC, three days after the clocks change on March 14.

When are the FOMC meetings in 2027?

The Fed has published eight tentative dates for 2027: January 26-27, March 16-17, April 27-28, June 8-9, July 27-28, September 14-15, October 26-27 and December 7-8. The March, June, September and December meetings come with new projections and a dot plot. Each date is tentative until the committee confirms it at the meeting before (source: Federal Reserve, meeting calendars).

What is a basis point in a Fed decision?

A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point, so 25 basis points equal 0.25 percentage points, the usual size of a Fed move. Traders often say "25 bps" for a quarter-point hike or cut, and CME's FedWatch assumes moves come in those 25-basis-point steps (source: CME Group, FedWatch methodology). A rise from 3.75% to 4.00% is a 25-basis-point hike.

Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Sources include the Federal Reserve's FOMC statements, implementation notes, projections, minutes, press-conference transcripts and meeting calendar, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US Treasury, CME Group, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, NIST and BloFin, current as of October 21, 2026.

Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold bitcoin, any stock fund or any other instrument. Prices can swing in both directions within minutes of an FOMC statement, so a stop-loss can fill well past its trigger, and a leveraged position can be liquidated and lose all the margin behind it. Market probabilities for a Fed decision are prices, not guarantees, and an outcome priced at 15% still happens about one time in seven. BloFin services are not available in restricted locations, including the United States. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.