Fed Decision September 16 Hour by Hour: Retail Sales at 8:30am, Statement at 2:00pm, Warsh at 2:30pm

TL;DR

• Wednesday, September 16 carries the quarter. The decision publishes at 2:00pm ET with the dot plotThe dot plot is a chart the Fed publishes four times a year showing where each of its 19 policymakers expects interest rates to be at the end of this year and the next few. Each dot is one anonymous official. Markets watch the median dot, because it shows whether the committee as a whole still expects to raise or cut. in the same release, and Chair Kevin Warsh takes questions at 2:30pm.
• The day in order: August retail sales at 8:30am, the decision and the projections at 2:00pm, the press conference at 2:30pm, and Lennar after the close.
• Retail sales is the only data, and the last figure the committee sees before it votes.
• A quarter-point hike is priced at roughly 85-86%, which makes the statement close to a known quantity. The risk sits in the dissents, the 2027 projections and the press conference.
• This page runs live updates through the decision, the way the Jackson Hole hub did in August.

What Time Is the Fed Decision on September 16?

2:00pm ET. The statement, the Summary of Economic Projections and the dot plot all publish at that same moment on federalreserve.gov. Warsh takes questions at 2:30pm.

Tuesday the 15th is day one. The FOMCThe FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) is the group inside the Federal Reserve that sets interest rates. It has 12 voting members and meets eight times a year; its statement is what a headline means by "the Fed decision". meets, breaks, and says nothing public. Everything a reader can act on happens Wednesday. It is also one of the four meetings a year that carries projections, per the Fed's meeting calendar.

The Board

Every time is Eastern. The 2:00pm release carries the statement and the projections together.

The Full Day, Hour by Hour

Time (ET)	What lands	Why it matters
8:30am	August advance retail sales, per Census	July's fell 0.6%, so this is the second reading on whether the consumer is pulling back
8:30am	August import and export price indexes, per the BLS schedule	A tariff read, and the smallest thing on this table
9:30am	Market opens
2:00pm	FOMC statement, projections and dot plot	The vote, the dissents and the committee's own rate path, in one release
2:30pm	Chair Warsh's press conference	The only unscripted half hour of the day
4:00pm	Market closes
After the close	Lennar (LEN) fiscal Q3 results; the call is 11:00am Thursday	A homebuilder's quarter, hours after a rate decision

Retail sales is worth more attention than its slot suggests. It lands while the committee is still in the room. A weak number will not flip a vote priced this heavily. It does go straight into the press conference, as the first thing a reporter can ask about.

Where the Risk Actually Sits

The hike is priced at roughly 85-86% on CME FedWatch, after August CPI's core print ran a tenth hot. When a move is priced that firmly, most of the repositioning has already happened. Traders who wanted to be long a hike have been buying it since Jackson Hole. A statement confirming one tells them little they did not know.

Three things on Wednesday still are.

The dissents. July's hold drew three votes against, all of them wanting a hike. A hike now flips that question around. Anyone who wanted to wait has to decide whether to say so on the record. A hike carrying two or three dissents reads very differently from a unanimous one.

The 2027 column. Wednesday's vote settles 2026 by itself, which leaves next year carrying the new information. June put the 2027 median at 3.6%. The dot plot preview works through why that number moved and what would move it again.

The press conference. Warsh has refused to spell out what would make him move, ever since he took the chair. He said so again at Jackson Hole. Half an hour of questions is where that position gets tested. No projection table tells you how it goes.

What Would Count as a Surprise

A hold. Nothing else on the day is close. At 85-86%, a decision to sit still would be a far bigger event than the hike, and nothing in the price is ready for it.

After that, in rough order:

• A hike with the 2027 median still at or below June's 3.6%. That would say the committee sees this as the end, not the start.
• Three or more dissents, in either direction.
• Warsh putting a condition on the next meeting. He has spent five months refusing to put one on this meeting.

A quarter-point hike would not surprise me. Nor would a 2026 median that merely catches up to the vote, or half an hour of Warsh committing to nothing. Most of the probability sits there, and that version of the day is one the market has already paid for.

The One-Line Read

The hike is the part everyone has already bought. Nobody owns the 2027 median, or whatever Warsh says at 2:30pm. The interesting half of Wednesday starts after the statement.