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What the Fed actually did
> The Fed held the federal funds rate at 3.75%–4.00% on Oct. 28, 2026, by a 10–2 vote. Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack dissented; both preferred a quarter-point hike. The interest rate on reserve balances stays at 3.90%. All three venues we grade had the hold as the favorite going in.
It was Hammack's second hike dissent in three meetings, after July's 9–3 hold. The hike the committee did not take is the one the market had already moved to December, where Kalshi's per-meeting contract now prices it at 80.5% (Oct. 28 afternoon capture). Kalshi's favorite has now won all 15 Fed decisions we have graded since January 2025 — see the scoreboard.
Three scoreboards, one game
The receipt. The Fed held on Oct. 28, 2026. On the outcome that happened, Polymarket.com closed at 95.55%, Kalshi at 94.5% and CME fed funds futures implied 92%. Polymarket.com was closest, by 1.05 points over Kalshi. All three had it as the favorite going in — the disagreement was about how sure to be, and the most confident book won. One meeting is one data point; the running record is on the cross-market divergence page, and the clock on December starts now.
| Venue | Favorite at the close | P(Hold) at the close | Since first capture | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polymarket.com | Hold | 95.55% | 70.5% → 95.55% (+25.1pp since 2026-08-30) | closest |
| Kalshi | Hold | 94.5% | 40.0% → 94.5% (+54.5pp since 2026-09-20) | |
| CME fed funds futures implied | Hold | 92.0% | 69.7% → 92.0% (+22.3pp since 2026-08-30) |
Each venue is graded on its last close before decision day, Tuesday, Oct. 27. Polymarket.com is the international book (US Users: Featured Contract/Price/Trade Not Available; Informational Use Only). Kalshi is its per-meeting decision contract, the same question the other two ask.
That is not where this story started. On Sept. 20, four days after the Fed's first hike since 2023, the same three venues had a second hike at the October meeting as the favorite, 54.5% to 58%. What happened in between is the story, and because we record all three venues every day, it is a story with receipts.
How the October hike died, day by day
Daily closes for the October meeting's quarter-point-hike contract, from the Fed decision record: one recorded price per UTC day through Oct. 18, then the last of each day's 30-minute captures (about 7:30 p.m. Eastern). Oct. 27 is the last close before the decision. Because the early rows are single captures, a September close can differ by a few points from a venue's own end-of-day price. Polymarket.com is the international book. The full series, every outcome, every venue, is on the October meeting page.
| Date | Kalshi | Polymarket.com | Futures | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept. 20 | 58% | 54.5% | 56% | Four days after the hike. A second one is the favorite. |
| Sept. 24 | 65.5% | — | 72% | Peak close for futures. |
| Sept. 28 | 69% | — | 68% | Peak close for Kalshi. The hike looks like a 2-in-3 shot. |
| Oct. 1 | 26.5% | 25.5% | 26% | Three sessions, 42 points, no single catalyst. The hold is the favorite. |
| Oct. 2 | 18.5% | 17.5% | 20% | Soft September jobs report. |
| Oct. 7 | 15.5% | 15.5% | 18% | FOMC minutes: most officials see another increase by year-end. The price barely moves. |
| Oct. 9 | 15.5% | 15.5% | 18% | The sleepy hold. |
| Oct. 14 | 29% | 28.5% | 30% | September CPI prints 3.7% headline, 2.6% core, the hottest of 2026. The Kalshi contract trades as high as 55 cents within 40 minutes of the 8:30 a.m. release, then gives most of it back by the close. |
| Oct. 16 | 13.5% | 13.5% | 18% | Chair Warsh, at the IMF meetings in Bangkok late on the 15th Eastern time: "I don't prejudge meetings." The spike unwinds in one session. |
| Oct. 17 | 13.5% | 13.5% | 16% | The committee's pre-meeting blackout begins. |
| Oct. 21 | 11.5% | 11.5% | 16% | Seven days out. |
| Oct. 22 | 5.5% | 5.5% | 8% | Kalshi's lowest close of the cycle. |
| Oct. 26 | 8.5% | 7.5% | 12% | Two days out (4 p.m. ET). Kalshi ticks back up from 7% at Sunday's close. |
| Oct. 27 | 4.5% | 4% | 8% | The last close before the decision. |
| Oct. 28 | — | — | — | Decision: hold at 3.75%–4.00%, 10–2. The hike contract settles at zero. |
Polymarket.com's October ladder is blank for Sept. 23–30 because our matcher missed it on those days; the hole is in our capture, not in their market, and it was fixed Oct. 1. The Sept. 20 figures in the text below are kept as the dated snapshot they were.
Two things stand out. The market tried twice to price a second October hike, and both times it walked the idea back within days. And the second attempt died on one sentence from a chair who has said he opposes forward guidance: the hot CPI put 35 points on the hike contract inside 40 minutes, 10 of them were still there at the next day's close, and the absence of a signal from Bangkok took those 10 back and five more. The committee's own minutes say another increase is likely this year. The market agrees. It stopped believing the increase came in October, and moved it to December — more on that below.
The receipt: how the three markets scored on the September hike
Going into October, it was fair to ask how the market did on September. Here is the answer, graded on the same rows the Fed Rate Tracker publishes, not from memory.
The Fed raised the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter point to 3.75%-4.00% on Sept. 16, effective Sept. 17. It was the first increase since 2023 and the vote was 12-0. In July the committee had held, 9-3, with three members dissenting in favor of a hike. In September the rest of the committee came with them.
On the outcome that happened, here is where each venue closed the night before:
| Venue | Favorite at the close | P(25bp hike) at the close | Since first capture | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CME fed funds futures implied | 25bp hike | 94.3% | 61.7% → 94.3% (+32.6pp since 2026-08-30) | closest |
| Polymarket.com | 25bp hike | 88.5% | 52.5% → 88.5% (+36.0pp since 2026-08-30) | |
| Kalshi | 25bp hike | 86.5% | 26.0% → 86.5% (+60.5pp since 2026-08-15) |
Futures was closest, by 5.8 points over Polymarket.com. All three had the hike as the favorite going in, so the disagreement was never about direction. It was about how sure to be, and the most confident book won.
Two things worth saying about that. First, Kalshi's contract traveled the farthest: it opened the series at 26 cents on Aug. 15 and closed at 87 the night before the decision. That is a market changing its mind in public, in real time, and getting it right. Second, one meeting is one data point. We said we would grade it and we did; the running record, which will be worth more than any single line in it, is on the cross-market divergence page. Nothing there is estimated or backfilled. The September 2026 preview is flipped to a recap at the same URL, charts and all, so you can see what was priced and when.
What changed since September
The hike itself. The range moved from 3.50%-3.75% to 3.75%-4.00%. The rate the Fed pays banks on reserve balances went to 3.90%. The effective fed funds rate, the number the futures market actually settles on, printed 3.88% the next day, up from 3.63%.
The dot plot. The Fed's September Summary of Economic Projections put the median year-end 2026 rate at 4.1%, up from 3.8% in June. The Fed publishes those projections as the midpoint of a range, so 4.1% says the median participant expects to end the year one quarter-point hike above where the range sits today. There are two meetings left, and the market now says that hike comes at the second of them. Kalshi ran a contract on exactly that number, and the dot plot piece walks through how it settled.
Oil. West Texas crude was around $84 a barrel in late August. It printed $107 on Sept. 15, the day before the decision. That is the single biggest reason inflation is not cooperating and the single biggest reason the committee went from a 9-3 hold to a 12-0 hike in seven weeks.
Inflation. The August consumer price index printed 3.4% year over year on Sept. 11. The September report, on Oct. 14, came in hotter still: 3.7% headline against a 3.6% call, with core at 2.6%, and gasoline doing most of the damage. The Fed's target is 2%. We wrote up what that print did to the Fed odds and the metals the afternoon it landed. The September PCE report, the gauge the Fed prefers, arrives Oct. 29 — the morning after the decision.
The chair. Kevin Warsh has said he does not believe in telling markets in advance what the committee will do, and on Oct. 15 he proved it, declining in Bangkok to preview this meeting or any other this year while repeating that inflation remains uncomfortably high. The hike contract read that as a hold. That is worth remembering on Oct. 28: a chair who will not signal in October is unlikely to signal December either, and the market will have to price it off the data.
Bond yields. The 10-year Treasury sat at 5.01% on decision day in September and eased to 4.94% the day after. The two-year, which tracks Fed expectations most closely, went 4.74% to 4.67%. That was a bond market that had the hike priced and did not read the statement as a threat of much more — and the October repricing says it read the committee correctly.
What Kalshi, Polymarket.com and fed funds futures priced going in
The night before the decision, the three venues agreed on direction and sat within 3.55 points of each other on the hold.
| Market | Hold | Hike 25 bps | Hike 50 bps | Cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kalshi | 94.5% | 4.5% | 0.5% | 1% |
| Polymarket.com | 95.55% | 3.95% | 0.45% | 0.1% |
| CME fed funds futures | 92% | 8% | — | 0% |
Each venue's last close before decision day, Oct. 27, 2026; Kalshi is its per-meeting decision contract. Polymarket.com is the international book (US Users: Featured Price Not Available; Informational Use Only).
Futures was the hawkish outlier at 8%, which was its habit all cycle: it ran highest on the September hike too, and was closest that time. It priced a higher October hike chance than Kalshi on 19 of 25 trading days from Sept. 21 to Oct. 23, and above Polymarket.com on all 28 days both had a price, so the gap was a lean, not a gap that opened on the eve of the meeting. This time the lean cost it: futures was the farthest of the three from the hold. The divergence tracker shows it as context, not a trade.
The October 2026 meeting page carries the full strike ladder and the three venues day by day. One note on that chart: the Kalshi line starts Sept. 20. For three days after the September decision our board priced October against the pre-hike range, which shifted every label a notch; those days were removed rather than relabeled, so the Kalshi series has a gap where the number would have been wrong.
What about December? That is where the hike went.
Kalshi's board, read against today's 3.75%-4.00% range, says:
| Kalshi, Dec. 9 | Hold | Hike 25 | Hike 50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| After the October hold, Oct. 28 (afternoon) | 15.5% | 80.5% | 2.5% |
| Rate after the December meeting vs. today, Oct. 26 | 17.5% | 68.5% | 10.5% |
| Same contract on Sept. 20 | 14% | 48% | 36.5% |
Read that carefully, because it is asking a different question than the October table. Kalshi's October and December contracts ask where the rate will be after that meeting compared with today. So "Hike 25" for December means the range ends the year one notch higher than it is now, whether that notch comes in October or December, and "Hike 50" means two notches, whether that is two quarter-point moves or one half-point move.
Now put the Oct. 26 and Sept. 20 rows together. On Sept. 20 the market gave a 36.5% chance of ending the year a full half point higher — two hikes, October and December — and that bucket peaked at 55% on Sept. 28. By Oct. 26 it was 10.5%, and the one-notch bucket went from 48% to 68.5%. The "no more hikes this year" bucket had moved only from 14% to 17.5%. That was not a market giving up on the second hike. It was a market taking it out of October and putting it in December. Kalshi's per-meeting December contract, which asks only what the Fed does at that meeting, says the same thing directly: a hike on Dec. 9 was 77.5% and a hold 23.5% on Oct. 26, and 80.5% and 17.5% on the afternoon of the October hold. With October settled, the two Kalshi contracts now ask nearly the same question, and the two-notch bucket that peaked at 55% is down to 2.5%. The December meeting also carries a new dot plot, which is where the committee gets to say what it would not say in Bangkok.
That is why we do not put Polymarket.com next to Kalshi's KXFED row in the December table. Polymarket.com's December contract asks what the Fed does at that one meeting, like Kalshi's per-meeting contract above. Same month, different question from KXFED. Line them up and part of any gap you see is accounting, not disagreement. The divergence tracker compares venues only for the next meeting, which is now December, and the KXFED settlement page has the full explanation.
What the first hike already did to your wallet
A quarter point is small. The direction is what matters, because it is the first move up after a long stretch of cuts, and the market still says another one is coming — just not in October. Here is the honest math on the one that already happened.
Credit cards. Card rates are pegged to the prime rate, which banks set three points above the top of the Fed's range. Prime moved to 7.00% with the hike. On a $10,000 balance that is about $25 a year more. A second hike, whenever it lands, would be another $25.
Home equity lines and variable-rate loans. Same path as cards, usually inside one or two billing cycles.
Mortgages. A 30-year fixed does not follow the Fed directly; it follows the 10-year Treasury. Freddie Mac's 30-year average was 6.95% the week of the September decision, up from 6.76% the week before, and the 10-year actually eased after the statement. Most of a September hike was priced into mortgage rates before it happened. A December hike that the market puts at about four in five is being priced in the same way, now.
Savings. The good news. High-yield savings accounts and money market funds tend to pass hikes along within a few weeks. If your cash is sitting in an account paying close to nothing, it has now been wrong twice in a row: once through the cuts, when you were fine, and once now, when you are not.
What comes next
The data that was always going to land the morning after: the September PCE report and the first estimate of third-quarter GDP, both at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, Oct. 29. They are the first December-relevant prints since the hold. The committee's blackout ends Oct. 29, so Fed speeches resume, and the next one comes before Dec. 8-9.
That December meeting carries a new dot plot, which is where the committee gets to say what Chair Warsh would not say in Bangkok. A statement and dots that leave a hike open keep the December contract where it is; a dot plot that drops the 4.1% median would be the first real dovish signal of the Warsh Fed.
Is there a position in December?
October's hold paid about 5.5 cents a contract to anyone who bought it at Kalshi's last close, before fees, and the hike contract went to zero. December is the open question now: Kalshi has a hike at 80.5 cents, which pays 19.5 cents a contract if the Fed moves and nothing if it does not.
What makes a market is that somebody disagrees. If you hold a view stronger than the market's, the Kelly calculator will tell you how much of that view to put on; on a number this far from 50, the answer is usually "less than you think."
How to read a prediction market on the Fed
The price is the probability. A contract at 88 cents means the market thinks there is an 88% chance the event happens. When the Fed held on Oct. 28, the hold contract paid $1 and the hike contract paid zero. Nobody is polled; people are putting money on it, and the price is where buyers and sellers meet.
We treat that as a forecast, not a promise. On Aug. 15 the September hike contract said 26% and was about to be very wrong. On Sept. 28 the October hike contract said 69%; a month later it closed at 4.5% and settled at zero. What markets are good at is updating fast, which is why the table at the top of this piece reads the way it does.
Where to watch it
The Fed Rate Tracker has the live board, the October meeting page has the ladder and the day-by-day three-venue series, the divergence tracker keeps the graded record, and the Fed decision record has every settled meeting since January 2025. If you use Claude or ChatGPT, our MCP server gives it the same live numbers: ask "what are the odds the Fed hikes in December" and it will pull the board.
We graded all three venues on the evening of Oct. 28, the same way we did for September: the receipt is above and on the October meeting page. The clock on December, where the hike went, starts now.
October grades from each venue's last close before decision day, Oct. 27, 2026; December prices from the Oct. 28, 2026 afternoon capture; the day-by-day table from the daily closes in the Fed decision record, and the September grades as of the Sept. 15, 2026 close, all from PredictionMarketsPicks' 30-minute capture of Kalshi, Polymarket.com and CME fed funds futures. Polymarket.com prices are from the international book. Prediction market contracts involve risk of loss. This is not financial advice.