Why it matters
The Probability Desk · Chart of the Day · Monday, 14 September 2026
Three readings of the same question, on the same five-level grid: which federal funds target range is in force after the FOMC meeting of 8–9 December 2026.
The gold bars are the Desk's weights today — 5% net easing, 10% unchanged, 35% one hike, 30% two, 20% three or more. The slate bars are the fed funds strip of 11 September: under 1%, 1%, 15%, 51% and 33%, which is 84% on two hikes or more. The green bars are the Committee's own June projections read as a distribution — 6%, 44%, 17%, 28%, 6%. The legend line at the top right is where this Desk stood on 31 August — 5, 25, 50 and 20 — whose two-or-more bucket was not split and maps across today's D and D+.
The strip and the dot plot are describing different Committees. To reach 84% on two hikes from a September probability of 83% and an October probability under half, the December meeting has to be treated as settled — and when the Desk's engine is calibrated to that strip, it reproduces the market's shape only by putting December at 99.9%. The Desk puts December at 58%. That single number is the whole disagreement, and Wednesday's dot plot is its first test.
Sources: Central Bank Watch, market-implied probabilities from fed funds futures, 11 September 2026 (the strip); Federal Reserve, Summary of Economic Projections, 17 June 2026, Table 1 and Figure 2 (the dots); Federal Reserve, FOMC minutes of 28–29 July 2026 and Governor Waller, 3 September 2026; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index Summary, 11 September 2026, and Employment Situation Summary, 4 September 2026; Polymarket, four separate contracts read 14 September 2026 afternoon — September, October, December (thin: $0.74m traded) and the end-2026 upper bound ($6.85m traded); Universal Asset Owners, The Probability Desk, 31 August 2026 (the prior edition's weights). Desk Monte Carlo, 50,000 paths, seed 20260914; mc.js ships with today's full report.
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