Fed Rate Decision October 2026: Holds at 3.75%–4.00%

FOMC Alerts · October 28, 2026

What was the Fed rate decision in October 2026?

Fed rate decision October 2026: the Federal Reserve held the federal funds target range at 3.75%–4.00% at its October 28 meeting, in line with going-in futures odds, the decision released at 2:00 PM ET (Federal Reserve statement). The vote was 10–2: Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack dissented, preferring a 25bp hike at this meeting.

Compared with September, the statement upgraded growth to expanding at a “strong” pace from “solid” and dropped the line that policy action would speed the return to 2% inflation, saying instead that more information will help the Committee judge the appropriate stance.

Going in, our calculation from fed funds futures using CME’s method put a hold at 95.6% and a 25bp hike at 4.4% (Yahoo delayed CBOT quotes as of about 9:35–9:46 AM ET, pulled 10:00 AM ET Oct 28), up from 90% for a hold on Monday morning.

Earlier in the session, the Bank of Canada raised its policy rate 25bp to 2.50%, its first hike since 2023, at 9:45 AM ET with its Monetary Policy Report (Bank of Canada). Going in, overnight index swaps implied a 77% chance of a hike (RateProbability, 4:00 PM ET Oct 26). The Canadian dollar firmed a touch afterward: USD/CAD was 1.4045 at 10:05 AM ET, from 1.4055 at 9:40 AM ET (Yahoo Finance, delayed).

What does the Fed decision mean for 0DTE today?

• Energy: The statement is out, and Warsh’s press conference was set for 2:30 PM ET. After that, what’s left today is the close; tomorrow brings Sept PCE and Q3 GDP at 8:30 AM ET, then the ECB decision at 9:15 AM ET.
• Premium: VIX was 17.3 at 2:01 PM ET (Yahoo Finance, delayed), which puts it in the Goldilocks 1 regime. Don’t count on the presser to crush implied vol today: by our calculation from Cboe VIX data on 93 FOMC days since 2015, the VIX closed below its open on 54.8% of them, versus 61.9% of other days. Post-decision implied vol has more often come in on the following session than on the day itself, so let the VIX price what’s left of the session, not a call on direction. See the SPX expected move for what the options are pricing.
• Structure: On a fly, set width by the VIX regime: ZombieLand (VIX under 17) 20–30 points, Goldilocks 1 (17–24.5) 30–40, Goldilocks 2 (24.5–32) 40–50, Chaos (above 32) 50+. Pay 5–10% of the width as debit, which is 1:19 to 1:9 risk-to-reward, and the debit is the max loss, known before entry. SPY and XSP widths are one-tenth of SPX’s. Today’s regime (Goldilocks 1) means 30–40-point SPX flies.
• Plan, don’t predict: Two hawkish dissents on a hold make the vote count the tell for December; the Dec 8–9 meeting brings new projections.

What does the October decision mean for December?

The next FOMC meeting is December 8–9, 2026, with a new Summary of Economic Projections and dot plot. Before today’s decision, our calculation from fed funds futures using CME’s method put the chance of at least one hike by December at 87.9% (10:00 AM ET Oct 28). All dates: FOMC meeting schedule 2026.

Related reading: FOMC October 2026 hike odds · SPX options expiration · Fed meeting this week · FOMC Alerts hub

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