Federal Reserve Press conference comparison — 29 October 2025 vs 18 March 2026
This Federal Reserve press conference comparison covers 29 October 2025 and 18 March 2026. Overall, the newer document was more dovish. Overall, the policy stance shifts subtly dovish on the rate path as the Fed moves from explicit pushback on near-term cuts to a neutral hold with acknowledgment that policy may already be at the high end of neutral. The next decision is likely unchanged, but the balance of risks leans toward eventual easing if labor market weakness persists.
What changed
More dovish. Overall, the policy stance shifts subtly dovish on the rate path as the Fed moves from explicit pushback on near-term cuts to a neutral hold with acknowledgment that policy may already be at the high end of neutral. The next decision is likely unchanged, but the balance of risks leans toward eventual easing if labor market weakness persists.
- Inflation — Little changed. Both documents describe inflation as above target but driven by transitory factors; the current adds slightly more confidence in tariff disinflation but reaffirms commitment to 2%, resulting in no material shift.
- Labour Market — Little changed. Both documents characterize the labor market as weak with near-zero adjusted job creation, and neither signals an acceleration of weakness or urgency, keeping the assessment unchanged.
- Rate Path — More dovish. Prior document contained explicit pushback against a December cut and emphasized high uncertainty, while current adopts a neutral wait-and-see stance with limited urgency and some dovish undertones (policy reaction too late), marking a dovish shift.
- Balance Sheet — Little changed. Prior document highlighted the end of runoff and a freeze on balance sheet size (dovish), while current document contains no balance sheet signals, implying no change in operational stance but reduced focus—net neutral.
Key wording
today the Federal Open Market Committee decided to lower our policy interest rate by ¼ percentage point.
In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside—a challenging situation.
A further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion—far from it. Policy is not on a preset course.
At today’s meeting, the Committee also decided to conclude the reduction of our aggregate securities holdings as of December 1.
a further reduction to the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion
they were strongly differing views
Today, the FOMC decided to leave our policy rate unchanged. We see the current stance of monetary policy as appropriate to promote progress toward our maximum-employment and 2 percent inflation goals.
The implications of developments in the Middle East for the U.S. economy are uncertain. We will remain attentive to risks to both sides of our dual mandate.
The median participant projects that the appropriate level of the federal funds rate will be 3.4 percent at the end of this year and 3.1 percent at the end of next year, unchanged from December.
I would say the rate is—you can characterize it as in the high end of neutral, or you can characterize it as perhaps mildly restrictive, even modestly restrictive.
We are balancing these two goals in a situation where the risks to the labor market are to the downside—which would call for lower rates—and the risks to inflation are to the upside—which would call for higher rates, or not cutting, anyway. So we’re in a difficult situation, and we feel like we’re—our framework calls on us to balance the risks, and we feel like where we are now, which is kind of on that borderline—the higher borderline of restrictive versus not restrictive, we feel like that’s the right place to be.
We’ll have to wait and see. I mean, we always say we’re going to learn more by the next meeting, and usually we do. But in this case, we’re going to learn a lot, because we’re going to learn—six weeks to the day until the next meeting.
Official documents
Background reading
Related
29 October 2025 press conference · 18 March 2026 press conference · Earlier meeting · Later meeting · Previous comparison · Next comparison · Methodology
The Cadence Brief
The one number that moved central bank pricing — delivered each weekday morning.