When does the FOMC meet?

Eight scheduled two-day meetings a year, roughly every six weeks, with the decision on the second day at 14:00 Eastern time. Unscheduled meetings are rare and themselves a signal.

What is the dot plot?

A chart published at the March, June, September and December meetings showing where each committee member expects the policy rate to be at the end of the next three years and in the long run. Markets compare its median with their own pricing.

Why can stocks fall on a decision that was fully expected?

Because the statement, the projections and the press conference change expectations for the meetings after this one, and the long end of the curve moves on those. The decision is priced; the path is not.

Glossary term

FOMC

The Federal Open Market Committee — the Federal Reserve body that sets the US policy rate, meeting eight times a year and publishing rate projections (the dot plot) at four of them. Its decision is the single scheduled event that reprices the discount rate on every long-duration asset at once.

AI-generated — produced automatically by Closelook’s systems under this site’s editorial policy.

What it means

The committee has twelve voting members: the seven governors, the president of the New York Fed and four of the other regional presidents on rotation. It meets on a published schedule, announces its decision at 14:00 Eastern time on the second day, and the chair holds a press conference thirty minutes later. Four meetings a year add the Summary of Economic Projections, whose chart of each member’s expected policy rate is the dot plot. Between meetings, futures markets price the probability of each outcome; a decision in line with that pricing moves markets less than the statement and the projections do.

The policy rate is the shortest rate in the economy; its effect on the ten-year and beyond runs through expectations, which is why the statement’s wording matters as much as the number.

Why it matters for the AI trade

The build-out is priced off the long end of the curve, and the committee moves the long end by changing what the market expects the short end to do over years. Into the 16 September 2026 meeting a quarter-point hike was priced at roughly four in five, with the ten-year Treasury at 5% and the ten-year real yield at 2.60%. The outcome that helps both halves of the AI trade is a hike the long end reads as the last one; the outcome that turns a chip correction into an index correction is a hike that pushes real yields higher still.

How Closelook uses it

Meeting days anchor the Morning 10 calendar; the sovereign-pressure board shows how the G7 curves take the decision; the Fed funds rate and quantitative tightening entries cover the instruments. We do not forecast the committee; we write down the levels that decide the reaction before it speaks.

Common questions

When does the FOMC meet?: Eight scheduled two-day meetings a year, roughly every six weeks, with the decision on the second day at 14:00 Eastern time. Unscheduled meetings are rare and themselves a signal.
What is the dot plot?: A chart published at the March, June, September and December meetings showing where each committee member expects the policy rate to be at the end of the next three years and in the long run. Markets compare its median with their own pricing.
Why can stocks fall on a decision that was fully expected?: Because the statement, the projections and the press conference change expectations for the meetings after this one, and the long end of the curve moves on those. The decision is priced; the path is not.