What Is FOMC in Forex? The Fed Day, Explained Simply

FOMC in forex means the Federal Open Market Committee, the part of the US Federal Reserve that sets interest rates. It meets eight times a year. On the Fed days on our calendar the decision came at 14:00 New York and the press conference at 14:30, and each can move the dollar. The dates are published in advance.

All times here are New York and a candle is named by the time it opens. The Federal Reserve publishes its meeting calendar a year ahead. The wider subject is in news trading.

What is FOMC in forex, and what does the committee decide?

The Federal Open Market Committee votes on the Fed's main interest rate, the target for the federal funds rate. A decision comes with a written statement. Some meetings also publish the committee's projections. Then the chair holds a press conference, and the questions can change how the decision is read.

Forex cares because a rate is the price of holding a currency. A higher or rising rate tends to lift the dollar and a lower or falling one to weaken it. Traders also read the words. The textbook calls a statement hawkish if it leans to higher rates and dovish if it leans to lower ones, and trades the gap between what was said and what was expected. That is the retail seat: a decision and a forecast.

The minutes are not the decision. They are the record of the meeting, published about three weeks later, with no rate decision behind them.

When is the FOMC decision, and why does a Fed day have two moves?

On the four Fed days on our calendar from April to September 2026 (29 April, 17 June, 29 July and 16 September) there were two known times. The statement came at 14:00 and the press conference at 14:30. This is On FOMC: one read with two minutes in it, where a jobs report or a CPI release has one.

The size of each, on EUR/USD, in pips for the 15-minute candle that holds it:

On gold, counting $1 as 1 pip, the decision candle ran 27.7, 102.7, 45.0 and 59.3, and the press conference candle 20.3, 57.5, 34.3 and 62.6. The count is newsMoves.fomc1330 in scripts/seo-counts.mjs. On EUR/USD the press conference candle was smaller than the decision candle on three of the four days. On gold it was larger on one, 16 September.

What did the decision do on a real day? EUR/USD, 29 July 2026

On Wednesday 29 July 2026 price had gone nowhere for hours and then ran. The low of the day, 1.13744, was in at 08:15, and from 13:00 the candles drifted up in a narrow band. Tuesday's high stood at 1.14052.

• 14:00, the decision. The candle opened at 1.13951, traded 6 pips under its open to 1.13894, then 36 pips over it to 1.14306. It closed at 1.14276, 22 pips over Tuesday's high, and its high was 25 over it.
• 14:15. A pullback: the low was 1.14151, still 10 pips over Tuesday's high.
• 14:30, the press conference. The candle opened at 1.14223 and traded 16 pips under its open, to 1.14067, which is 1.5 pips over Tuesday's high. It also traded 14 pips over its open, to 1.14367, and closed at 1.14353.
• The rest of the day. Higher highs through the afternoon: 1.14522 at 14:45, 1.14666 at 15:15, and the high of the day, 1.14709, at 16:45. The day ended at 1.14654.

This day kept going, which is not what a Fed day always does. A close back under Tuesday's high would have looked like a failed break, and the press conference candle came within 1.5 pips of one without closing there. We cannot say why. FOMC news trading in forex goes through a Fed day we read wrong, and why price spikes both ways on FOMC takes the candle itself.

Does the Fed decision make the high or low of the day?

Seldom. We counted the 14:00 and 14:30 candles on the four Fed days, eight markets each, from 6 April to 1 October 2026. The 14:00 candle held the day's high or low on 5 of 32 market-days, 3 at the high and 2 at the low. The 14:30 candle held it on none of 32. A candle holds when its high is the day's high or its low the day's low.

So the decision minute was large and still sat inside the day's range most of the time. Nor does the count say which way: highs and lows both appear. It is four Fed days on one feed, and the eight markets move on one dollar, so it is not 32 independent tests. What price does before the FOMC decision takes the hours before 14:00, where the day's high or low often already sits.

How should a trader read a Fed day?

Not by the words alone. The statement and the press conference are both text, and two minutes of reading them cannot be done faster than price moves. The candles above show the cost of trying: the same 15-minute window had price 6 pips under its open and 36 over it, and the next one went 16 under and 14 over.

What a reader can use from a day like 29 July is the order of events. The low of the day was nearly six hours old at 14:00. The decision then ran through a level that had stood all morning, a pullback came and went, and the afternoon kept the move. A different Fed day on our calendar, 17 June, put the high of the day before the decision on gold. The two days do not agree with each other, and neither is a rule.

What do the three seats see on a Fed day?

The Three Seats read 29 July three ways.

• Retail sees a decision and a forecast. The aim is to be right about hawkish or dovish. The candle took price up 36 pips and down 6 inside one 15-minute window, which a view on the words cannot place.
• The market maker, as we read it, sees two known minutes and a level. Tuesday's high is where the day's stops rest, and the decision candle could reach it in one move. That is News-Induced Liquidity, twice. Nobody outside can see those orders.
• The observer sees a size and a count. Two big candles, one count of 5 in 32, and a day that ran on. None of it says who was behind the move.

What does this not tell you?

It does not tell you what the Fed decided or how it was received. It is four Fed days, and EUR/USD on one of them. It cannot say whether the press conference dip was a test of Tuesday's high or a coincidence. A hunt or a break seen afterwards is not a setup, and our own fixed-rule test around releases lost money after costs, as the news trading hub sets out.

For the other US releases, how to trade NFP and NFP spreads and slippage cover the jobs report, and the NFP stop hunt shows two reports minute by minute.

Course 2 of ForexiaPRO, The Chaos Pattern, teaches this read step by step in lesson 2.3.3, NFP, CPI, FOMC: One Read, Three Calendars.