Will the Federal Reserve Hike rates by 25bps at their October 2026 meeting?
YES means Hike 25bps
Hike 56¢, hold 45¢, any cut ≈ 1¢. December leans harder toward a hike at 66¢. The fed-funds market has the rate above 4.00% after October at 61¢.
- 24h volume
- 35.5k
- 472.3k lifetime
- Open interest
- 301.0k
- +238.4k over 7d
- Spread
- 1¢
- 3,756 × 28.0k at the touch
- 24h range
- 27¢ – 70¢
- 50 recent trades
A YES contract costs 56¢ and pays $1 if it happens.
costs 45¢
An independent read of this market
Lean YES at 56¢: the Fed just hiked in September and Goldman already calls for a follow-up 25bp hike in October, but the market price already reflects most of this.
The Fed unexpectedly hiked 25bps on Sept 16, 2026 (its first hike since 2023), with 16 of 18 officials' dots signaling at least one more hike by year-end and the median dot plot rising toward 4.1-4.4% for end-2026. Goldman Sachs explicitly called for the next hike to land at the October 28 meeting, citing the Fed's preference for delivering hikes at consecutive meetings to support a "timelier return" to 2% inflation. The Kalshi complex (Hike25 56¢, Hold 45¢, other buckets near zero) already prices this in reasonably efficiently; my independent estimate (58%) is only marginally above the market, reflecting genuine two-meeting (Oct vs Dec) timing uncertainty that isn't fully resolved by current data.
Small: ~0.10-0.15 of risk budget. Edge (2pts) barely clears the 1pt spread, and the market has already re-priced almost all of the relevant news, so this is a marginal, not high-conviction, trade.
What the evidence says
- 1The Fed raised rates 25bps to 3.75%-4.00% on Sept 16, 2026, its first hike since 2023, with 16 of 18 officials' dots projecting at least one more hike by year-end.CNBC · 2026-09-16
- 2Goldman Sachs now expects the Fed to hike 25bps again at the October 2026 meeting, viewing October as the most natural time to deliver a follow-up hike after September's move.Reuters · 2026-09-17
- 3Official FOMC statement confirms the 12-0 vote to raise the funds rate to 3-3/4 to 4 percent, citing elevated inflation and a 'timelier return' to the 2% target as rationale, implying continued tightening bias.Federal Reserve · 2026-09-16
- 4Kalshi YES price for Hike-25bps rose from 0.23 to 0.56-0.57 over the past month, with the jump concentrated right after the Sept 16 hike and Goldman's Oct call; recent taker flow is 99% YES-side, and depth/spread are healthy (1pt spread, ~$70k depth per side).Kalshi exchange data· 2026-09-20
How it resolves
Resolves YES only if the FOMC raises the target range by exactly 25bps at the October 28, 2026 meeting (per federalreserve.gov). It is one of five mutually exclusive buckets (cut >25, cut 25, hold, hike 25, hike >25); only one can pay out. If the meeting is cancelled, the "maintain rate" bucket wins instead, so an unusual cancellation would flip this to NO regardless of underlying conditions.
What the tape says
Price has moved sharply from 0.23 (Aug 22) to 0.56-0.57 now, with the jump concentrated Sept 17-18, 2026, right after the Fed's Sept 16 hike and a Goldman Sachs note calling for another hike in October. Spread is tight (55/56, 1pt), depth is solid (~$5-28k per level on both sides, ~$70k total each side), and recent taker flow is overwhelmingly YES-side (99% yes contracts in the last window), indicating the move up is being driven by buyers, not a stale level. This looks like a fast, well-informed repricing after a genuine news shock rather than noise.
What would change this
- A cooler-than-expected September or early-October CPI/PCE print could push the Fed to skip October and wait for December, when a fresh Summary of Economic Projections is due.
- Political pressure from the Trump administration against further hikes could delay action to avoid hiking twice in a row this close to midterms.
- A shift in the labor market (rising unemployment) could tip the Fed back toward a hold despite the current hawkish dot plot.
- The Oct 28 meeting could in theory be cancelled or disrupted, which under Kalshi's rules would auto-resolve the 'hold' bucket YES and this market NO regardless of the economic case for a hike.
Generated by an AI analyst from live exchange data and public web sources. Research and analytics, not investment advice. Markets can move after this was written.
Price history
YES price per candle with the bid/ask band, volume underneath. Times in UTC.
Order book
Resting orders, both sides shown as YES prices. Bars are size.
Order book unavailable.
How this market resolves
Verbatim from Kalshi. Read this before the price.
If the Federal Reserve does a Hike of 25bps on October 28, 2026, then the market resolves to Yes.
This market is mutually exclusive. Therefore, if the Federal Reserve hikes by 50bps, the 50bps market will resolve to Yes and the 25bps market will resolve to No. Only one bucket, at maximum, can resolve to Yes. Note 4/28/25: For the markets beginning after the May meeting, if a scheduled FOMC meeting is canceled and does not occur on its scheduled date, then the strike for "Fed maintains rate" will resolve to Yes and all others will resolve to No.
- opened
- Sep 29, 2025 · 2:00 PM UTC
- closes
- Oct 28 · 5:59 PM UTC · may close early
- settles by
- Oct 28 · 6:05 PM UTC
- ticker
- KXFEDDECISION-26OCT-H25
Other outcomes in this event
Mutually exclusive: YES prices should add to about $1.00 (they add to 104¢).
Recent trades
Over the last 50 trades, 85% of contracts were bought on the YES side.
| When | YES | Contracts | Side |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24m ago | 56¢ | 43 | bought yes |
| 32m ago | 56¢ | 944 | bought yes |
| 32m ago | 56¢ | 2,141 | bought yes |
| 41m ago | 55¢ | 572 | bought no |
| 55m ago | 56¢ | 5.19 | bought yes |
| 56m ago | 56¢ | 0.34 | bought yes |
| 2h ago | 56¢ | 21 | bought yes |
| 2h ago | 56¢ | 173 | bought yes |
| 2h ago | 56¢ | 130 | bought yes |
| 3h ago | 55¢ | 214 | bought no |
| 3h ago | 56¢ | 8.66 | bought yes |
| 3h ago | 56¢ | 10 | bought yes |
| 3h ago | 56¢ | 10 | bought yes |
| 3h ago | 55¢ | 1,000 | bought no |
| 3h ago | 55¢ | 503 | bought no |
Prices are YES cost in cents and approximate the market’s implied probability. Data is read live from the Kalshi Trade API on every page load. galdor.xyz places no orders and holds no positions. Research and analytics, not investment advice.