Glossary
Dot Plot
The Fed chart showing where each FOMC participant expects the federal funds rate to be at the end of coming years.
On this page
The dot plot is a chart the Federal Reserve publishes four times a year showing where each member of the Federal Open Market Committee thinks the Federal funds rate should be at the end of the current year, the next few years and over the longer run. Each dot is one official's view, shown anonymously. It is part of the Summary of Economic Projections, released with the March, June, September and December Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statements, and it has been published since 2012.
How to read it
The vertical axis shows rate levels in quarter-point steps; each column is a year. With all seats filled there are 19 participants: the seven Fed governors and the 12 regional bank presidents. Markets focus on the median dot for each year.
What it is and is not
The dot plot is a set of individual projections, not a committee decision or a promise. Each official assumes what they consider the appropriate policy path, given their own forecast for growth, unemployment and Inflation. All 19 participants submit dots, but only 12 vote on policy in any year, so the median can include people who do not vote that year.
The dots have often been wrong by a wide margin. In December 2021 the median projected three rate increases for 2022; the Fed ended up raising rates by 4.25 percentage points that year as inflation surged. Traders therefore compare the dots with market pricing in fed funds futures and treat a shift in the median, more than its level, as the news.