Will the Fed Hike–Hike–Hike in the next three decisions (Sep–Oct–Dec)?

- [2026-09-16] The FOMC raised the federal funds target range by 25bp to 3.75%–4.00% in a unanimous 12-0 vote — the Fed's first hike since 2023 — confirmed by the Atlanta Fed's press release of the statement. "The Federal Open Market Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent." https://www.atlantafed.org/news-and-events/2026/09/16/fomc-statement - [2026-09-16] At that meeting's Summary of Economic Projections, 16 of 18 participants expected at least one additional 25bp hike by year end, with only two projecting rates remaining at the new 3.75%-4.00% range, and a median year-end rate near 4.1% (4.00%-4.25% range) . https://www.pcbb.com/industry-insights/economy/2026-09-16-fomc-september-2026 - [2026-10-01] Fed official Logan was reported saying Fed's Logan says '50 bps or more' rate hikes needed to curb inflation , showing a hawkish internal view ahead of October, per Investing.com's economic calendar news feed. https://www.investing.com/economic-calendar/interest-rate-decision-168 - [2026-10-02] The September jobs report showed nonfarm payrolls rose by just 29,000, well below the 84,000 forecast, and the unemployment rate increased to 4.2% , prompting markets to price a high probability the Fed stays put in October. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/02/jobs-report-september-2026.html - [2026-10-02] BLS's official release confirms: "Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in September (+29,000), following an average monthly gain of 45,000 over the prior 12 months." https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm - [2026-10-02] Bloomberg noted the weak jobs data came with slowing wage growth: nonfarm payrolls increased only 29,000 and revisions cut 60,000 jobs from the prior two months, while average hourly earnings edged up a weaker-than-expected 0.1% from August and rose 3% compared with a year earlier — the slowest annual wage growth since 2021 . https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2026-10-02/us-employment-report-for-september - [2026-10-05] Per CME FedWatch, the probability of any hike at the October 28 meeting stood at 21.6% on October 5, versus 22.1% on October 2 and 70.9% on September 28 — a 49.3-point collapse in one week . https://dailyeconomics.substack.com/p/daily-economics-services-hold-up - [2026-10-05] CNBC (via FXStreet) reported that the probability of a 25bp Fed rate hike in October declined below 20% following the employment report, with senior Fed officials pushing back against expectations for a back-to-back hike at the October 28 FOMC meeting . https://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-today-euro-selloff-picks-up-steam-us-dollar-ignores-easing-rate-hike-bets-202610050805 - [2026-10-05] The same CNBC data flagged that while October hike odds fell, expectations for a rate hike of at least 25 basis points from the Fed at its October meeting were at 23.8% per CME FedWatch (down from 70.9% a week earlier), while expectations for a rate hike in December remain elevated at an 86.8% chance . https://cnbc.com/2026/10/05/dollar-holds-firm-as-french-fiscal-woes-keep-euro-on-back-foot.html - [2026-10-06] A market summary citing CME FedWatch stated "the probability of another 0.25 percentage point rate hike at the October 28 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting fell to about 18% to 20%, from roughly 70% a week earlier." https://cryptotimes.io/2026/10/06/bitcoin-price-today-btc-holds-85500-as-172m-liquidations-etf-outflows-hit-before-fed-minutes - [2026-10-07 scheduled] Minutes of the September 15-16 meeting are due for release, which should reveal committee discussion detail relevant to the hike path, per the admiralmarkets preview: "When are the Fed minutes released? | Wednesday, 7 October 2026, at 2:00 pm ET (19:00 BST)." https://admiralmarkets.com/analytics/traders-blog/fomc-minutes-october-2026 - [2026-10-28 scheduled] The second of the three decisions covered by the market is the October 27-28 FOMC meeting; as of current pricing a hold is now the dominant market expectation (roughly 78-84% per Kalshi-linked trackers), reversing from majority-hike expectations two weeks earlier — per predictionmarketspicks.com: "prediction markets put a hold at the Oct 27–28, 2026 FOMC meeting at 78% — the base case on Kalshi's KXFED ladder. The full split is 21% hike, 78% hold, 1% cut." https://predictionmarketspicks.com/tools/fed-rate-tracker/october-2026 BOTTOM LINE: The first leg (September) already delivered a confirmed 25bp hike to 3.75%-4.00%, but a sharply weaker September jobs report (29,000 payrolls, unemployment up to 4.2%) has flipped market pricing for the October 28 meeting from a likely hike (~70-85%) to a likely hold (~78-84%), while December hike odds remain elevated (~87%) — meaning the "Hike-Hike-Hike" sequence currently looks unlikely to complete given October is now more probably a pause, even if December still hikes. NOT FOUND: No official FOMC statement or vote has yet occurred for the October 27-28 or December 8-9 2026 meetings (both still pending as of 2026-10-06); no post-minutes-release (Oct 7) market reaction data was available at time of research; no confirmed Fed Chair or Board member public commitment on the exact October outcome beyond market-implied pricing and secondhand reports of hawkish/dovish commentary.

- [2026-09-16] The FOMC voted 12–0 to raise the federal funds target range by 25bp to 3.75%–4.00%, the first hike since 2023, confirmed by the Fed's own statement: "The Federal Reserve has made the following decisions to implement the monetary policy stance announced by the Federal Open Market Committee in its statement on September 16, 2026." This makes "hike" the confirmed outcome for the first of the three decisions in this market. (https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20260916a.htm) - [2026-09-16] This was the Fed's "first interest rate hike since 2023, and indicated another to come" , with the September SEP dot plot showing "Fed officials' year-end rate projections are between 4.1% and 4.4%" — i.e., policymakers themselves signaled at least one more 2026 hike at the time (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/16/fed-rate-decision-september-2026.html). - [2026-09-16] Per the JPMorgan Asset Management summary, the median participant now expects the fed funds rate to hike an additional 25bps ending 2026 at 4.1%, and sixteen of eighteen participants expect one additional rate hike this year, while four participants project two additional hikes — the base-rate "house view" from the Fed's own projections pointed to a second hike this year (Oct or Dec), not necessarily both. (https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/adv/insights/portfolio-insights/fixed-income/fixed-income-perspectives/fomc-statement-september-2026/) - [2026-10-02] Market-implied odds shifted sharply against an October hike after weak data: CME's FedWatch tool shows only a 17% chance that the Fed increases rates by a quarter percentage point in October, down from close to 36% a week earlier; on Kalshi, chances for a hike in October stood at just 18%, down from almost 70% a week ago , while traders still forecast a December hike, with FedWatch odds above 75% and Kalshi odds at 65% (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/02/fed-rate-hike-odds-decline-after-september-jobs-report.html, via search snippet). - [2026-10-02] A rate-decision-odds tracker citing Kalshi/Polymarket averages placed Oct 28 hike odds at 17-18% (hold favored at ~84%) and a hike by Dec 9 at roughly 65-72%, illustrating that market consensus sees "hike-hold" or "hold-hike" as more likely than three consecutive hikes. - [Historical base rate] Since 1971 there have been ten completed Fed tightening cycles before 2026; six ended in recessions, three of them with the cause still debated, and four did not . Multi-meeting cycles are the norm once a tightening begins, but the pace (consecutive-meeting hikes vs. spaced-out hikes) has varied enormously, from the "measured pace" of 17 consecutive 25bp hikes from 2004-2006 to pauses between hikes in other cycles (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.24362; https://maseconomics.com/fed-rate-hike-history-1971-2026/). - [Historical base rate] In the immediate run-up to this cycle, the FOMC under Chair Warsh held rates at the June and July 2026 meetings (July's vote was 9-3, with three dissenters favoring a hike) before finally hiking in September — showing the Committee's demonstrated preference for a cautious, data-dependent, not-necessarily-consecutive pace even while in a hiking bias. "17 June 2026 Hold... 29 July 2026 Hold... 16 September 2026 Raise" is the Committee's actual track record this cycle (https://maseconomics.com/fed-rate-hike-history-1971-2026/). - [Base-rate reasoning] No historical U.S. tightening cycle in the post-1994 era of regularly-dated 8-meeting-a-year FOMC scheduling has featured three back-to-back single-meeting hikes immediately following a near 3-year pause and only after two intervening holds — this 2026 cycle began from a position where the Fed had been on hold/cutting for most of 2025-26, making an uninterrupted 3-meeting hike streak a more unusual, front-loaded outcome relative to the gradualist norm seen in 1994-95, 2004-06, and 2015-18 cycles (https://www.fundssociety.com/en/news/markets/30-years-five-cycles-and-one-certainty-the-fed-is-the-fed-and-rules-the-markets/; https://maseconomics.com/fed-rate-hike-history-1971-2026/). - [2026-10-04] Independent FedWatch-tracking sites corroborate the shift: one tracker citing CME data as of Oct 4 found "a 77% probability that the US Federal Reserve will maintain interest rates in the upcoming meeting" (i.e., October), reinforcing that an October hike — a precondition for "Hike-Hike-Hike" — is currently seen as the less likely outcome (https://growbeansprout.com/tools/fedwatch). BOTTOM LINE: The base rate/outside view is mixed-to-unfavorable for three consecutive hikes: September delivered the first qualifying hike (confirmed), but the Fed's own 55-year track record shows tightening cycles are rarely executed as uninterrupted meeting-to-meeting hikes immediately after a long pause, and the Committee itself held twice (June, July 2026) before hiking once; current market-implied odds (a useful "wisdom of crowds" forecast, though not infallible) now favor an October hold followed by a possible December hike, making the specific Hike-Hike-Hike sequence a minority-probability path rather than the modal outcome. NOT FOUND: No long-run statistical base rate specifically for "three consecutive quarter-point hikes across three FOMC meetings after a near 3-year pause" could be located (no cycle in the dataset reviewed matches this precise setup); no formal survey of economists' probability of a December-only vs. October-and-December hike combination was found beyond market-based (CME FedWatch/Kalshi) odds.

YES means: the Fed hikes the upper bound of the federal funds target range at all three of the September, October, and December 2026 FOMC meetings (three consecutive 25bp+ hikes), resolving this market "Yes." - [2026-09-16] The September leg is already locked in: the FOMC hiked 25bp to 3.75%-4.00%, satisfying leg one of the three required hikes (confirmed in prior research); the key remaining question is whether October and December both also hike. - [2026-10-01] Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan delivered one of the most hawkish Fed comments since September, saying the policy rate "needs to rise an additional 50 basis points or more" to become "modestly restrictive," explicitly framing the Fed as having "barely started: one hike down, at least two to go." - [2026-09-29] Fed Governor Michael Barr said inflation and tariffs have "knocked off course" the path to 2%, stating "In my base case, further policy adjustments are likely to be needed to ensure inflation comes down to target in a timely fashion." - [2026-10-04] Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said inflation is "where the problem is," per 24/7 Wall St., reinforcing that not all officials have pivoted dovish despite the weak jobs print. - [2026-10-03] Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari held firm on a hawkish outlook even after cooler August inflation data, with officials indicating another hike could still be warranted before year-end given the Iran war and supply shocks, per IJR's roundup. - [2026-10-03] JPMorgan's Michael Feroli set an explicit, falsifiable trigger for the YES path: "It would now take a very strong CPI to make the October meeting live" — meaning the September CPI, due October 14, is the single data point that could revive an October hike before the meeting on October 27-28. - [2026-10-03] Supporting the inflation-pressure case: the ISM manufacturing prices-paid gauge jumped to 77.9 in September, and core PCE "has risen every month for the past year, including a 0.2% gain in August," per 24/7 Wall St., indicating underlying price pressure has not reversed despite the payrolls miss. - [2026-10-03] Energy costs remain a live inflationary threat that could force the Fed's hand: WTI crude stood at $96.16/barrel on September 29, "up 13.7% in a month," and 24/7 Wall St. noted "a sustained move back above $100 would all but lock in a December hike" — with the 2026 Iran war's Strait of Hormuz disruptions as the driving mechanism. - [2026-10-03] Financial conditions have tightened independent of Fed action, which hawks could cite as justification to keep tightening via rate hikes: the 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5.28% and the 30-year at 5.63%, levels not seen in decades. - [2026-10-05] Even after the jobs-report selloff in hike odds, CME FedWatch and Kalshi still price a December hike as the modal outcome (roughly 75-87%), meaning the market itself assigns a meaningfully higher-than-even chance to at least two of the three meetings hiking, and a credible minority chance remains of October "surprising" hawkish if CPI (Oct 14) runs hot, which is the single most plausible mechanism to complete the three-for-three sequence. - [2026-09-30] 24/7 Wall St. reported that "two other Fed governors told a very different story about where policy is headed before year's end" relative to Williams' dovish signal, indicating the internal FOMC debate is not unanimously dovish and an upside inflation surprise could still swing votes toward an October hike. BOTTOM LINE: The YES path requires a materially hot September CPI print (Oct 14) and/or a renewed oil-price spike above $100 to flip October back toward a hike, combined with the already-elevated (~75-87%) market odds of a December hike; multiple sitting Fed officials (Logan, Barr, Goolsbee, Kashkari) remain overtly hawkish and have explicitly said more hikes are needed, keeping the three-for-three sequence a live, data-contingent possibility rather than a closed case, even though it is currently the minority market expectation. NOT FOUND: No evidence yet of the September CPI print itself (due October 14, after today's research date) or of any FOMC member specifically committing to an October hike; no primary Fed source commentary dated after October 5 was available at time of research.

YES means: the Fed hikes the federal funds target range at all three of the September, October, and December 2026 FOMC meetings (confirmed 25bp hike in September, plus qualifying hikes at both the October 27-28 and December 8-9 meetings), completing a "Hike-Hike-Hike" sequence. - [2026-10-05] Prediction-market cross-venue tracking shows the October 28 meeting pricing collapsed to a hold at the Oct 27–28, 2026 FOMC meeting at 78% — the base case on Kalshi's KXFED ladder, with the full split 21% hike, 78% hold, 1% cut , confirming hold is now the dominant scenario independently across Kalshi, Polymarket and futures venues, not a single-source artifact. - [2026-10-01] Government-shutdown-driven data blackout removes the Fed's normal decision inputs before October 28: the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed it will not publish the October Jobs Report at all, and the November report has been rescheduled for December 16 , meaning the Committee may have to vote on stale or substitute data — a documented historical trigger for caution/pause rather than a second consecutive hike. - [2026-10-01] Multiple Fed leadership voices are explicitly counseling patience rather than committing to a second straight hike: Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said in an Oct. 1 speech at the University of Virginia that future policy changes should depend on incoming data, the economic outlook and the balance of risks... "My colleagues and I will need to come to our own judgment, which may take more time" . - [2026-10-02] NY Fed President Williams, a voting member, reinforced this: his comments followed a similar message from New York Fed President John Williams, who said another rate hike this year could be appropriate but saw no urgency to make the move — language consistent with an October skip even if December remains live. - [~2026-09-27] Internal committee division is wider than the unanimous September vote implied: one governor is on record favoring cuts, not hikes — Governor Chris Waller said Thursday he is in favor of trimming interest rates by another quarter percentage point at the end of the year, according to Yahoo Finance — showing the "hike" bias is not uniformly held across the Committee heading into the final two decisions. - [2026-10-07 scheduled] A minutes preview argues the hurdle for back-to-back hikes is now high even before the text is released: "The hurdle for an October rate hike is now high. Even if the minutes remind markets how hawkish officials were in September, subsequent data have strengthened the case for patience" (Bloomberg Economics, via Business Standard). - [2026-10-05] A dedicated minutes-preview piece frames the asymmetric risk squarely toward confirmation of a pause: the minutes carry asymmetric risk for markets that have already priced out much of an October move; a dovish-leaning account would confirm that repricing and could extend the softening in front-end Treasury yields and the dollar . - [2026-10-04] Reporting attributed to a Fed vice chair figure states explicitly that October tightening is off the table and frames December as the next live decision point: Federal Reserve Vice Chair Jeffrey Zhang delivered an unambiguous message to financial markets this week: the central bank is not preparing an October interest rate increase, despite a bond market that has been pricing in exactly that scenario... one of the most direct pushbacks against market speculation from a senior Fed official in 2026 — if accurate, this alone would mechanically break the "Hike-Hike-Hike" sequence regardless of what December brings. - [2026-10-03] A side-by-side comparison piece lists five independent reasons feeding the no-hike case for October, including that October Rate Hike Pre-Midterm is Unprecedented: Recent history favors the Doves , an institutional/political-economy argument (pre-midterm timing) not captured by jobs-data analysis alone. - [2026-09-27] Even the bullish case for a hike concedes the committee is genuinely split and data-constrained: the counter-evidence to a hike is the shutdown itself. If the BLS cannot publish the jobs report and CPI, the Fed lacks the two most important inputs for its decision , with the same source concluding the base case is that the Fed holds in October and waits for the delayed releases . - [Structural point] Because the question requires hikes at all three meetings, a single hold at October — now the modal outcome across Kalshi, Polymarket, and CME-linked futures trackers per the Oct 5 cross-venue data above — is sufficient by itself to resolve the market "No" (or "Other" if any cut occurs), regardless of the ultimate December decision; the sequence has no path to "Yes" that tolerates even one pause. BOTTOM LINE: The literal resolution criteria demand hikes at all three meetings; with October hold odds near 78-80% across independent venues, an acknowledged Fed data blackout from the shutdown, and multiple voting members (Jefferson, Williams) and at least one governor (Waller) publicly favoring patience or cuts rather than a second consecutive hike, the single most likely failure point for "Hike-Hike-Hike" is October — and that failure alone, even with a subsequent December hike, resolves the contract NO (or triggers "Other" only if a cut occurs). NOT FOUND: No confirmed FOMC statement or vote for October 27-28 or December 8-9 exists yet; the September minutes (due Oct 7) had not been released at the time of this research, so no confirmed post-minutes market reaction or internal-vote-count detail is available; the "Vice Chair Jeffrey Zhang" attribution (yehey.com/QUE.com) could not be cross-verified against a primary Federal Reserve source or a major wire service and should be treated as unconfirmed pending corroboration.