Will the Fed decrease interest rates by 25 bps after the September 2026 meeting?

The most important context for this contract is that the Fed has already delivered what it projected for the entire year — a single 25 basis point cut that the committee described as consuming the full year's planned easing in one vote. That framing is the analytical anchor for everything that follows. When a central bank explicitly characterizes a move as using up its projected easing budget, it's not just describing a policy decision — it's signaling to markets that the bar for additional moves within the same window has risen substantially. The September meeting now sits on the other side of that signal, meaning a cut there wouldn't be a continuation of the projected path but a deviation from it, requiring new justification rather than simply executing previously telegraphed intentions. The committee's internal distribution reinforces this read. The most recent projections showed a meaningful bloc of members who preferred no additional cuts in 2026 at all, and the June decision was described as historically divided. A committee that barely agreed on the one projected cut is not predisposed toward delivering an unplanned second one unless conditions change materially between now and September. The street's forward guidance has aligned with this read. Major forecasters who were tracking the Fed's projected path have updated their expectations to treat the June cut as the year's final easing move, with the next cycle of cuts not expected until 2027 at the earliest. Some bank research has shifted even further toward expecting hikes rather than additional cuts if inflation data disappoints. The scenario where September delivers a cut requires a growth or employment deterioration significant enough to override the committee's explicit "pause and assess" posture — not a soft patch, but a visible deterioration that changes the inflation-employment tradeoff calculus entirely. Bottom line: The one projected cut has already happened. September easing is now off-baseline by the Fed's own framing. Watch employment and growth data specifically — inflation alone won't move this committee toward another cut, but a labor market deterioration might.