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The dot plot
Where each Fed official sees rates going, four times a year, and how to read the chart this site is named after.
What it is
Four times a year, in March, June, September and December, the Fed releases its Summary of Economic Projections with the rate decision at 2:00 PM Eastern. Every participant, the Fed governors and the twelve regional bank presidents, nineteen when all seats are full, places one dot for each of the next few years and one for the longer run: where they think the federal funds rate should be at the end of that year. The dots are anonymous.
How to read it
The headline is the median dot, the middle of the pack. Each dot sits at the middle of a quarter-point range, so a dot at 3.375 means 3.25 to 3.50 percent, and the Fed reports the median rounded to one decimal. That is why medians read 3.4 or 3.6 and almost never 3.5. Count the steps between today's rate and the median to see how many cuts or hikes the Fed expects.
Mini Macro calls the median for the year ahead: this year's at the March, June and September meetings, and next year's in December, when this year is all but decided.
Why markets care
Traders compare the dots with what markets already price. When the median shows fewer cuts than the market expects, yields tend to rise. The dots are forecasts, not promises, and they have often been wrong a year out, which is exactly what makes them fun to call.