Fed rate hike in 2026?

What this question means

At 71%, the crowd expects a Federal Reserve rate hike at some point in 2026 — and that conviction has been building steadily. The forecast was 55% when tracking began, 59% a month ago, 66% a week ago, and has ranged between 45% and 75%.

That is a clean upward trend rather than a jumpy one, which usually indicates accumulating evidence rather than a single decisive event.

It is worth reading this alongside the narrower question on this board about the September meeting specifically, which is priced near a coin flip between a quarter-point increase and no change. The two are consistent: the crowd is fairly confident a hike comes this year, and much less confident about which meeting delivers it. That gap between "whether" and "when" is where most of the disagreement in rate forecasting lives.

The question covers the full year, which gives it several meetings' worth of chances — a large part of why it sits so far above any single meeting's odds.