Fed Hawk Dove Board: Who’s Hawkish Before Oct 28

FOMC Alerts · October 28, 2026

This page is our fed hawk dove board before the Oct 28 vote: scores for all 19 FOMC participants from verified votes and dissents first, then verbatim quotes. Hold odds into today’s meeting are largely priced. Our calculation from fed funds futures using CME’s method, as of about 9:19 PM ET on Tue Oct 27, puts an Oct hold near 91.1% and a 25bp hike near 8.9%, with at least one hike by the Dec 9 meeting near 79.1%. The unpriced edge before 2:00 PM ET is who leans hawkish enough to dissent and how the committee shifted since July. Every label below is our classification, not a fact. SEP dots stay anonymous — we never attribute them. Oct 28 is Chair Kevin Warsh’s fourth FOMC meeting as chair.

How do we score the Fed hawk dove board?

Rubric, from our Fed Bias Board knowledge base (pre-decision freeze before the 2:00 PM statement):

• Each rates-path action or quote scores from −2 (strongly dovish) to +2 (strongly hawkish).
• Actions outweigh words: dissent and vote evidence get a 2.0× weight before time decay.
• Time decay uses a 365-day half-life.
• Fewer than two clear rates-path items and no dissent or vote → insufficient evidence (no score).
• Blind re-score of about 20% of the evidence agreed 73% (8 of 11 items).

2026 voters (per the Federal Reserve FOMC page, checked Oct 27): Warsh, Williams, Barr, Bowman, Cook, Hammack, Jefferson, Kashkari, Logan, Paulson, Powell, Waller. This board is the standing hawk–dove map; the overnight vote-line watch is a sister piece (cross-link once live).

Who is hawkish on the Fed before the Oct 28 vote?

Sorted by our classification score (hawkish → dovish). Confidence combines action count, quote count and recency. Low confidence means treat the placement as provisional.

The hawk cluster that frames dissent risk is three 2026 voters: Logan (Dallas), Hammack (Cleveland) and Kashkari (Minneapolis). All three dissented for a hike on Jul 29 (statement vote 9–3) and sat with the unanimous Sep 16 hike to 3.75–4.00%. Schmid (Kansas City) posts the highest score on our axis but is a 2026 non-voter. Four participants — Barr, Powell, Venable and Musalem — stay unscored for insufficient rates-path evidence in our corpus. Cook is scored Mildly dovish with low confidence (quote-only).

What shifted on the hawk–dove axis in 90 days?

The largest measured hawkish 90-day shift belongs to Governor Christopher Waller (+2.0 on our scale). He dissented for cuts in Jul 2025 and Jan 2026; by Oct 8 he was openly anticipating additional hikes if the data hold. Logan (+1.0), Kashkari (+0.76) and Hammack (+0.72) also moved hawkish on the same window. Kashkari’s multi-year path runs from 2017 anti-hike dissents to 2026 pro-hike dissents — a documented flip, not a one-meeting lean.

On Oct 1, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said in prepared remarks: “Without any policy restriction, inflation will likely continue its above-target trend. Policy therefore needs to become restrictive.” (Dallas Fed).

Governor Waller, in an Oct 8 Board speech: “If the economic data continue to come in as expected, I anticipate additional hikes to support a timelier return of inflation to our 2 percent goal.” (Federal Reserve Board).

Those two lines sit beside the Jul/Sep vote record; they do not replace it. Actions still outrank words in our classification.

What does the Fed Bias Board mean for 0DTE?

This board is a pre-2:00 positioning map, not a trade call. The vote tally prints with the decision at 2:00 PM ET — about 30 minutes before Warsh’s presser — and that is the first energy print for same-day SPX options. The Logan/Hammack/Kashkari cluster frames dissent risk into a meeting the futures market still prices as a hold; Waller’s shift reframes the center rather than the hawk wing.

• Energy: Scheduled event risk. Know the SPX expected move before 2:00. Zero hawkish dissents would be the softer surprise relative to July’s three; a repeat of July would be the hawkish surprise relative to today’s hold odds.
• Premium: Let VIX price it. Our regimes: ZombieLand below 17, Goldilocks 1 from 17 to 24.5, Goldilocks 2 from 24.5 to 32, Chaos above 32. Do not assume IV reliably deflates after the presser. Term-structure context: VIX term structure explained.
• Structure: Defined risk only — for example an iron condor with max loss known before entry. Size so a tag of either wing is survivable.
• Plan, don’t predict: Write what 0, 1 and 3 hawkish dissents would mean for December pricing before 2:00, then let the statement and presser confirm or override. Odds method: fed funds futures probability; October path context: October FOMC hike odds.

Day clock and presser window: our Fed meeting this week map. Remaining 2026 dates: FOMC meeting schedule 2026.

Consistent or divergent? (updated after the 2:00 PM decision)

This section will be updated after the Oct 28 statement and vote tally print. The question for readers: did the decision and dissent line match what this pre-decision board implied — hawk cluster still leaning for tighter policy, Waller nearer the center-hawk, four officials still unscored — or did the published vote diverge from that map?

Related reading: Fed meeting this week · October FOMC hike odds · SPX expected move · All FOMC Alerts coverage · FOMC Alerts hub

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