FOMC Statement & Rate Decision
Eight scheduled meetings per year (Wednesday) · 14:00 ET
The Federal Reserve's rate decision plus the statement describing how the committee reads growth and inflation. The decision itself is usually fully priced; the volatility comes from changes in the statement's wording and the dot plot when projections are released.
The 14:00 statement move is often reversed or extended at 14:30 when the Chair's press conference starts — treating the two as one event with a ~90-minute risk window is the safer read. Many prop firms restrict trading around both.
What it measures
The Federal Reserve's target rate decision plus the statement text describing how the committee reads growth, inflation and risks. Four meetings a year add the Summary of Economic Projections with the dot plot.
- The decision itself — almost always fully priced by futures beforehand
- Statement wording changes — a single swapped adjective is the actual news
- Dot plot (quarterly) — each member's rate path; shifts here outweigh the decision
Why the economy cares
This IS monetary policy — the price of money for the world's reserve currency. Every other USD release matters mostly through how it shifts what this meeting will do.
How it maps onto the chart
Hawkish surprise (higher path, firmer language) → USD up, indices and gold down; dovish inverts it. The statement move is only half the event: the press conference 30 minutes later regularly rewrites it.
Price behavior around the release
Before
The day of the meeting is typically the week's quietest stretch — a compressing range from the London session onward as desks refuse to carry risk into 14:00 ET. Both sides of that compression are stacked stops.
During
The 14:00 candle is the sharpest scheduled move in FX: our measurement puts the following hour at ~4.5x an ordinary 14:00 hour on EURUSD — the loudest event we measured. Fills inside the first minute are effectively lottery tickets.
After
Treat 14:00-15:30 ET as one event: the statement move into the presser regularly reverses fully ('sell the statement, buy the presser'). The durable trend usually reveals itself only after the Q&A ends.
Who lets you trade it
News-trading policy of every firm in our verified catalog, read off the firm's own pages. Details and per-program exceptions live in the firm's rules.
| Firm | Policy | Window | If violated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha Capital | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Apex Trader Funding | Allowed | — | — |
| AquaFunded | Allowed | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Atlas Funded | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Bloom Funded | Unpublished | — | — |
| Blue Guardian | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Blueberry Funded | Restricted (all) | ±2 min | Profit removed |
| BrightFunded | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Bulenox | Allowed | — | None |
| E8 Markets | Allowed | — | — |
| Earn2Trade | Allowed | — | None |
| Equity Edge | Restricted (all) | ±2 min | Account breach |
| FINTOKEI | Allowed | — | — |
| For Traders | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | — |
| FTMO | Restricted (funded) | ±2 min | Account breach |
| Funded Trading Plus | Allowed | — | None |
| FundedNext | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit share reduced |
| FundedX | Restricted (all) | ±5 min | — |
| FundingPips | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| FXIFY | Allowed | — | — |
| Goat Funded Trader | Allowed | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Hola Prime | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Lucid Trading | Allowed | — | — |
| Maven Trading | Restricted (all) | ±2 min | Account breach |
| MyFundedFutures | Restricted (funded) | ±2 min | — |
| NYS Markets | Restricted (funded) | ±10 min | Profit share reduced |
| Orion Funded | Restricted (funded) | ±2 min | — |
| PineX Capital | Restricted (all) | ±5 min | Account breach |
| Propanium | Restricted (all) | ±2 min | None |
| Rebels Funding | Restricted (funded) | ±5/0 min | — |
| Sarmaye Gozare Bartar | Allowed | — | — |
| SharkFunded | Restricted (funded) | ±10 min | Account breach |
| Take Profit Trader | Restricted (funded) | ±1 min | — |
| The5ers | Allowed | — | — |
| Top One Trader | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | — |
| Topstep | Allowed | — | — |
| Tradeify | Allowed | — | — |
Policies verified 2026-08-22 and re-checked weekly. Restricted usually applies to funded accounts only — evaluations are commonly exempt; open the firm's rules for the exact split.