Charts

The FOMC sets one rate directly, the overnight federal funds rate. Everything else it cares about, from longer-term borrowing costs to inflation and unemployment, moves in response to that rate and to what markets expect the FOMC to do next. These charts put its decisions and its own projections beside what followed. Market yields, inflation and unemployment come from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's FRED database; projections and statement text come from the Federal Reserve Board.

Treasury yields

Constant maturity yield, daily close. At 2 and 5 years, grey lines mark FOMC statement days: hover one for the decision, click to pin it.

Yields from the U.S. Treasury par yield curve, updated each business day.

Real policy rate

Midpoint of the target range minus core PCE inflation over the prior twelve months. Above zero, policy is restrictive in the Fed's own terms; the dashed line, where shown, is the FOMC's longer-run estimate of neutral.

Fed vs. reality

Where the FOMC expected things to go at each Summary of Economic Projections, against what happened. Each grey spine starts where things stood at that meeting and runs through its medians for that year-end and the two after; each year of SEPs has its own colour, and the thicker one is the latest. Solid line: what actually happened. Redrawn on every CPI, PCE and jobs release.

Statement tone

Each statement scored for hawkish or dovish language, shown as a bar from the centre line; the step underneath is the target range in force at each point. The interesting meetings are where the bar and the step disagree.

Tone is scored by a decision model reading the statement's text alone, with the same questions for every statement, so scores are comparable across chairs. Outlined bars are statements whose language leans further than their decision.