Will the Fed increase interest rates by 25 bps after the January 2027 meeting?

- [2026-09-16] The FOMC voted 12-0 to raise the federal funds target range by 25 bps to 3.75%-4.00%, the FOMC voted 12-0 to raise the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to a target range of 3.75%–4%. This was the first hike since 2023. (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/16/fed-rate-decision-september-2026.html) - [2026-09-16] The September Summary of Economic Projections showed the median participant expecting the fed funds rate to hike an additional 25bps ending 2026 at 4.1%, no change to the policy rate in 2027 , with 16 of 18 participants expecting at least one additional 25bp hike by year end... median year end policy rate approximately 4.1%, corresponding to 4.00%-4.25%. (https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/adv/insights/portfolio-insights/fixed-income/fixed-income-perspectives/fomc-statement-september-2026/; https://www.pcbb.com/industry-insights/economy/2026-09-16-fomc-september-2026) - [2026-09-16] The dot plot specifically for 2027 showed a split committee: this isn't likely to be "one-and-done" for hikes but also probably won't be the start of an extended hiking cycle; only eight dots project another 25 basis points in 2027. (https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/fomc-meeting) - [2026-10-02] The federal funds effective rate stood at 3.88% (mid-point of the current 3.75%-4.00% target range), per the Fed's own H.15 release. 2026 Sep 25: 3.88. 2026 Sep 28: 3.88. (https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/) - [2026-10-02] Following a weak September jobs report and a softer-than-expected inflation print, a weaker-than-expected September employment report altered traders' outlook for a rate hike by the Federal Reserve in October, which is now seen as extremely unlikely... Investors are still pricing in that the Fed will hike interest rates in December. (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/02/fed-rate-hike-odds-decline-after-september-jobs-report.html) - [2026-09-29] Just before that jobs data, markets had been pricing back-to-back hikes: fixed income markets are now firmly pricing in back-to-back Federal Reserve rate hikes for October and December 2026... elevate the federal funds rate to 4-4.25%. The piece noted that also raises the prospect that a sequence of hikes could extend into early 2027, but that's not the markets' current base case. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2026/09/29/what-to-expect-from-interest-rates-for-the-rest-of-2026/) - [2026-10-05] A rate-probability tracker shows the next meeting (Oct 28, 2026) pricing only modest hike odds, with the current implied path showing futures-based expectations well below full certainty of another hike this cycle (site shows ~29% hike odds for Oct 28 meeting as of its snapshot). (https://rateprobability.com/fed) - [2026-10-02] A separate futures-based rate forecast tool states the current effective federal funds rate is 3.88%... futures markets are pricing the rate to rise to about 4.1% by January and reach roughly 4.8% by October 2027 , implying the market's modal expectation is roughly one more 25bp hike occurring by January, consistent with a December (not January) hike being the marginal move. (https://streetstats.finance/rates/fedfunds) - [2026-10-28 scheduled] The next FOMC meeting is October 27-28, 2026, with no SEP/dot plot scheduled for that meeting. The next FOMC meeting is October 27–28, 2026. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to announce its interest rate decision on Wednesday, October 28, 2026 at 2:00 PM ET. Current Rate 3.75% - 4%. (https://fedratecalc.com/fomc-meeting-schedule/) - [2026-12-09 scheduled] The December 2026 FOMC meeting is seen by markets as the most likely point for the next hike: if the Fed does not raise rates in October, markets see a hike on Dec. 9 as almost certain. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2026/09/29/what-to-expect-from-interest-rates-for-the-rest-of-2026/) - [2027-01-27 scheduled] The question's own meeting (January 26-27, 2027 per the Fed calendar) has not yet occurred; a rival prediction market (Robinhood) shows contract pricing implying "maintain" as the modal outcome, with "hike 25bps" a secondary possibility (figures not to be treated as current/live). (https://robinhood.com/us/en/prediction-markets/economics/events/fed-rate-decision-in-january-2027-jan-27-2027/) - [2026-09-16] Fed Chair Kevin Warsh signaled a hawkish but data-dependent stance, with "We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective clearly and at sufficient speed," he said. "Today, the FOMC decided that this standard has not been satisfied." This underlies the committee's bias toward further tightening if inflation stays elevated, which is the key swing factor for whether a hike occurs by/at the January 2027 meeting. (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/16/fed-rate-decision-september-2026.html) BOTTOM LINE: The Fed reversed course from 2025's cutting cycle and hiked 25bps in September 2026 (to 3.75%-4.00%), with officials' own dot plot and market pricing centered on one further 25bp hike occurring by year-end 2026 (most likely at the December 9 meeting) rather than at the January 27-28, 2027 meeting itself; a softer October jobs/inflation print has already pushed October-hike odds down and modestly cooled the broader hiking narrative, making a fresh hike specifically announced at the January 2027 meeting a secondary, not base-case, scenario as of early October 2026. NOT FOUND: An official Fed calendar confirmation of the exact January 2027 meeting dates (the resolution source cites Jan 26-27, 2027, while some secondary trackers list Jan 27); no FOMC statement, minutes, or SEP from an October or December 2026 meeting yet (those meetings had not occurred as of today, 2026-10-06); no live, meeting-specific CME FedWatch or Polymarket odds for the January 2027 meeting beyond the one rival Robinhood market snapshot (noted as potentially stale and excluded from analysis per instructions).

- [2026-09-16] The FOMC raised the federal funds target range by 25 bps to 3.75%–4.00% at its September meeting, the first hike since July 2023, ending a pause that followed three consecutive 25bp cuts in Sept/Oct/Dec 2025: "Fed policymakers unanimously voted to raise rates 25 basis points, the first hike since 2023...The Fed's target range is now 3.75% to 4%, up from 3.5% to 3.75% where it had been since a cut last December." - [2026-09-16] The September 2026 SEP dot plot signaled further tightening, with "16 of 19 members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) expect at least one more rate hike this year" and the median fed funds projection raised for both 2026 and 2027. - [2026-09-21] Per the St. Louis Fed's own summary, "the median projection for the federal funds rate at the end of this year is 4.1%, where it remains in 2027 before falling to 3.9% by year-end 2028. These projections are higher than those in June by 0.3 percentage points this year and 0.5 percentage points in both 2027 and 2028." - [2026-09-16] Bondsavvy's reading of the dot-plot distribution: "The dots in 2027 are interesting, as there were four outliers projecting rate cuts in 2027 while the other 14 FOMC participants projected the target range to be either 4.00% to 4.25% or 4.25% to 4.50%." — i.e. a strong majority of officials see 2027 levels at or above the post-September range, implying at least one more hike is plausible before/around January 2027. - [2026-09-29] Market pricing (reported by Forbes) has shifted hawkish: "Fixed income markets are now firmly pricing in back-to-back Federal Reserve rate hikes for October and December 2026...This would elevate the federal funds rate to 4-4.25%." The same piece notes "That also raises the prospect that a sequence of hikes could extend into early 2027, but that's not the markets' current base case." - [2026-10-05] A third-party futures-based tracker (Central Bank Watch, methodology ~96-97% aligned with CME FedWatch) shows cumulative market pricing of a hike having occurred by the January 27, 2027 meeting date, though a 25bp increase specifically delivered at that January meeting (as opposed to already in place from October/December hikes) is a separate question from the cumulative "higher than today" probability. - [2026-10-04] A separate independent tracker citing CME FedWatch data put the probability of the Fed holding rates at its very next (October) meeting at 77%, underscoring that market pricing for hikes has been volatile and meeting-specific, not a smooth glide path. - Base rate / outside view on dot-plot accuracy: "the dot plot's track record as a forecast is poor. Over the past decade, the median year-ahead dot has been within 50 basis points of the actual year-end federal funds rate only about half the time." This cautions against over-relying on the September SEP's 2027 median as a precise predictor of the January 2027 decision specifically. - Historical pattern precedent: in the 2004-06 and 2022-23 tightening cycles the Fed hiked repeatedly at consecutive or near-consecutive meetings once a hiking cycle began (e.g., monthly 25bp hikes through 2004-2006), suggesting that once a new hiking cycle starts (as in September 2026), follow-through hikes at subsequent meetings have historically been common, though not universal — cycles have also paused or reversed quickly (e.g., 2023 pause after July, 2025 reversal to cuts). - [2026-09-29] Context for the magnitude of the current cycle: Fed officials "recently reinforced this hawkish stance, highlighting a strong economy and new inflationary risks from AI, oil prices, and geopolitical events," which supports continuation of tightening into early 2027 under current conditions, but data dependency makes multi-month-ahead calls uncertain. BOTTOM LINE: The base rate for a 25bp hike specifically at the January 2027 meeting is shaped by an active, newly-begun hiking cycle (first hike since 2023 delivered September 2026) with the dot plot and recent market pricing both leaning toward additional hikes in late 2026/into 2027; however, historical dot-plot accuracy is poor at this horizon and the market's "base case" as of late September explicitly does not treat a hike continuing into January 2027 as the most likely single outcome, making this a live but not dominant possibility on outside-view grounds. NOT FOUND: A precise historical frequency of "hikes specifically at the meeting immediately following two already-delivered hikes in a new cycle" (i.e., a clean analogue base-rate statistic); any formal survey (e.g., Reuters poll) of economists' January 2027 rate call; the current CME FedWatch probability for the January 27-28, 2027 meeting specifically (site blocked a that level of detail in search snippets).

YES means: the FOMC raises the upper bound of the federal funds target range by 25 bps at its January 26-27, 2027 meeting, versus the level prevailing immediately before that meeting. - [2026-10-05] Market-implied pricing (Central Bank Watch, ~97% aligned with CME FedWatch) shows a **fresh** (non-cumulative) move priced specifically at the January 27, 2027 meeting of "4.21%higher 89.1%same 10.9%lower 0.0%" with the January meeting row showing a discrete 44.5% probability of an additional +11.1bp move layered on top of whatever happens at October/December, separate from the cumulative probability that the rate is simply higher than today's level by January (https://centralbank.watch/federal-reserve/). - [2026-10-05] The same tracker's distribution table shows the 4.13% rate level (i.e., 4.00%-4.25%, one hike from today) carrying only 44% weight by the January meeting while 4.38% (two hikes) carries 43% weight, indicating the market treats a second hike having already occurred or occurring by January as roughly a coin-flip outcome, not a tail scenario (https://centralbank.watch/federal-reserve/). - [2026-09-29] Independent of the January meeting specifically, Forbes reported that fixed-income markets pricing back-to-back October/December hikes explicitly "raises the prospect that a sequence of hikes could extend into early 2027" , establishing a plausible mechanism (a hiking cycle with momentum) rather than a one-off move (https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2026/09/29/what-to-expect-from-interest-rates-for-the-rest-of-2026/). - [2026-09-15] The CNBC Fed Survey (conducted just before the September hike) found a sharp hawkish shift: a majority of respondents to the CNBC Fed Survey now forecast at least two rate hikes over the next one year, with a third predicting three or more, a stark change from just one month ago when just 46% expected a hike ahead, growing to 86% with 55% expecting more than a single hike , implying private-sector economists see the tightening cycle extending well past a single December move and plausibly into the January 2027 window (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/15/cnbc-fed-survey-two-rate-hikes-seen-ahead.html). - [2026-09-15] The same survey showed inflation expectations remaining elevated into 2027: "CPI forecasts rose for both 2026 and 2027, with the average forecast rising to near 3.5% for this year and then settling in at 2.85% in 2027" — a 2027 inflation forecast still well above the Fed's 2% target, supplying the fundamental justification Chair Warsh has cited for continued tightening (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/15/cnbc-fed-survey-two-rate-hikes-seen-ahead.html). - [2026-09-16] Investor positioning right after the September meeting, per U.S. Bank's writeup, showed markets pricing a multi-hike path extending beyond year-end: "Before the announcement, market prices indicated about a 90% probability of an increase, and investors now anticipate three additional hikes by mid-2027, including one more in 2026" — i.e., two of those three additional hikes are modeled as landing in early-to-mid 2027, consistent with one occurring at the January meeting (https://www.usbank.com/investing/financial-perspectives/market-news/federal-reserve-interest-rate.html). - [2026-09-16] Separately, iShares/BlackRock's Fed outlook corroborates this multi-hike 2027 path: "The market is pricing in another one or two hikes in 2027 to bring the fed funds target rate to 4.25% to 4.5%" , directly naming the January 2027 meeting window as a candidate for one of those moves (https://www.ishares.com/us/insights/portfolio-insights/fed-outlook-rates-kevin-warsh-fixed-income-2026). - [2026-09-16] Chair Warsh's own conduct strengthens the mechanism: he is the first Chair in over a decade to decline to submit a dot to the SEP, explicitly because "Chairman Warsh did not submit an estimate for the June 2026 meeting, his first as Fed Chair, and he mentioned an aversion to forward guidance during the press conference" — meaning the committee's own median dot (which shows no 2027 hike) understates the Chair's actual reaction function, since his post-meeting rhetoric has consistently been more hawkish than the submitted dots (https://www.ishares.com/us/insights/portfolio-insights/fed-outlook-rates-kevin-warsh-fixed-income-2026). - [2026-09-16] Morningstar's independent read of the September dot plot/press conference found a similar hawkish skew beneath the median: "Markets are expecting four rate hikes (a full percentage point) by mid-2027" , a materially larger tightening path than the committee's own median SEP forecast, implying market participants assign real weight to a January 2027 hike as part of that four-hike sequence (https://www.morningstar.com/economy/warsh-pounds-table-inflation-fight-we-see-rate-cuts-2027). - [2026-10-04] Kalshi's companion contract for the immediately preceding (December 9, 2026) meeting prices a 25bp hike at "72% chance" , confirming that if this December hike is realized (highly likely per this pricing), the Fed will have delivered three consecutive hikes (Sept/Oct-or-Dec/Dec) heading into January — a momentum pattern historically associated (per colleagues' 2004-06 and 2022-23 analogues) with continued follow-through rather than an abrupt stop (https://kalshi.com/markets/kxfeddecision/fed-meeting/kxfeddecision-26dec). BOTTOM LINE: The single most credible path to YES is continuation of the hiking cycle the Fed restarted in September 2026: if inflation (headline ~3.5% in 2026, consensus still near 2.85% for 2027 per the CNBC Fed Survey) remains stubbornly above target and Warsh — who has been more hawkish than his own committee's median dot and pointedly withholds his own SEP projection — keeps pushing the committee, market-implied pricing (Central Bank Watch) already assigns a non-trivial ~44% discrete probability to a fresh hike specifically at the January 27, 2027 meeting, layered on an expected prior Dec 2026 hike, with several outlooks (iShares, U.S. Bank, Morningstar) explicitly modeling 2-4 total hikes extending into mid-2027. NOT FOUND: An official CME FedWatch (cmegroup.com) screenshot/figure isolating the January 27, 2027 meeting specifically (site not directly accessible via search/fetch); any post-September-FOMC Reuters or Bloomberg economist poll with a specific January 2027 rate call; confirmation of the exact January 2027 meeting dates on the Fed's own calendar page (fetch not completed this round).

YES means: the FOMC's January 26-27, 2027 statement shows the upper bound of the target federal funds range raised by 25 bps versus the level in place immediately before that meeting (i.e., a hike delivered specifically at that meeting, not merely a higher level already reached via earlier October/December 2026 hikes). - [2026-10-05] A futures-implied tracker (methodology ~96-97% aligned to CME FedWatch) decomposes the "move at this meeting" (the fresh, marginal move, as opposed to the cumulative level reached) and shows only a 44.5% probability of a fresh +11.1bp-equivalent move specifically at the January 27, 2027 meeting — i.e., more likely than not (55.5%) that no new hike is delivered at that meeting itself, because the bulk of expected tightening is already priced for December 9, 2026 (81.1% fresh-move probability that day) rather than January. (https://centralbank.watch/federal-reserve/) - [2026-10-05] The same source explicitly warns that cumulative "higher than today" probabilities for later meetings (e.g., 91.8% "higher" by Jan 27) are not to be read as the odds of a hike at that specific meeting, since they already "include any move priced in for earlier meetings" — a resolution-criteria-relevant distinction, since this Polymarket contract only pays out on the change versus the level immediately prior to the January meeting, not versus today. (https://centralbank.watch/federal-reserve/) - [2026-09-11] A Bloomberg survey of 48 economists (fielded Sept 4-9, 2026) found a majority expected the Fed to hold in September and "for policy to remain unchanged into late 2027," citing cooling price pressures and proximity of the October meeting to the midterms as reasons for a prolonged pause once any near-term move is made. (https://www.briefs.co/news/most-economists-expect-fed-to-hold-rates-through-2027-despit/) - [2026-09-11] The same poll's two-thirds majority expected the Fed to leave its June-vintage projected rate path "largely intact," which pencils in only one more 2026 hike followed by cuts in subsequent years — i.e., the dominant economist view as of mid-September has the hiking cycle essentially finishing before January 2027, not extending into it. (https://www.briefs.co/news/most-economists-expect-fed-to-hold-rates-through-2027-despit/) - [2026-09-11] Conference Board economist Yelena Shulyatyeva's base case was for the Fed to "hold steady in September, October, and December," a view that—if it instead shifts to "hold in January" after a December move—directly supports a January no-hike outcome. (https://www.briefs.co/news/most-economists-expect-fed-to-hold-rates-through-2027-despit/) - Structural/calendar point: the January 26-27, 2027 meeting is not one of the Fed's quarterly Summary of Economic Projections ("dot plot") meetings (those fall in March, June, September, December); historically the Fed has been less likely to make significant policy pivots at non-SEP meetings absent a clear inflation/labor shock, favoring inertia/hold at January absent fresh data surprises. - Resolution-criteria technicality: per the rules, if the FOMC issues no statement by the end of the next scheduled meeting (March 2027), the market defaults to "No change" — a fallback that only matters in a tail scenario (e.g., meeting cancellation/delay) but structurally favors NO in any ambiguous edge case rather than assuming a hike by default. - Mechanism for NO: given the Fed already front-loaded hawkishness with the September 2026 hike and markets/economists concentrate the "next" expected hike at the December 9, 2026 meeting (per already-cited Forbes/centralbank.watch data), the most likely path to a January 2027 "No" is simply that any further tightening is delivered in December, leaving the Committee on hold in January either to assess impact or pause into the next SEP cycle in March. BOTTOM LINE: The strongest NO case rests on the "fresh move per meeting" decomposition showing under 45% probability of a new hike specifically at the January 27, 2027 meeting (versus concentrated hike-odds at December 9), reinforced by a Bloomberg economist consensus favoring an extended hold after any near-term move and by January's status as a non-SEP, lower-conviction-for-major-pivots meeting. NOT FOUND: A live, meeting-specific CME FedWatch probability snapshot for January 27, 2027 (CME's own site was not directly accessible); any post-October-2026-jobs-report economist survey (e.g., updated Reuters/Bloomberg poll) with a January-specific rate call; confirmation of whether the Fed calendar lists the January 2027 meeting as Jan 26-27 or Jan 27-28 (sources conflict, e.g., centralbank.watch lists "January 27, 2027" as the decision date).