<!-- Working title for draft.json: Stock Market Today: The Fed Held Rates at 3.75% to 4% as Inflation Tests Its Resolve -->
The Federal Reserve held its policy rate on Wednesday, October 28, keeping the federal funds target range, the interest rate the Fed sets as its main policy tool, at 3.75% to 4.00% [1][2]. Hiring Lab, the research arm of job site Indeed, called the decision widely expected [1]. Expected or not, the question that matters for stocks this week is whether another hike follows. The hold itself settles nothing on that question. In September the Fed raised the same range by 25 basis points, a quarter of a percentage point and the first hike in three years [3]. Consumer prices rose 0.6% in September on a monthly basis [1], against inflation measures that have held above 2% since 2021 [3]. Stocks trade this week with that decision five days old. The range anchors borrowing costs across the economy, which is why stock investors follow each Fed decision.
What the Fed decided
Wednesday's statement by the Federal Open Market Committee left the target range untouched [1]. The release was published at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time (18:00 GMT) on October 28 [2]. Hiring Lab's review of the past four statements finds each one ending with the same sentence, "The Committee will deliver price stability." [1] That line is the promise the current pause is measured against. A committee that promises price stability and then holds rates while prices rise has left its next move to the data.
Why the pause is under test
The September hike came on the 16th [3]. Hiring Lab described it as an effort to keep inflation expectations in check "as soaring energy prices pass through to the wider economy" [3], and noted it came after a surprisingly strong August jobs report [3]. Its analysts also called the hike "a paradigm shift in the thinking of Fed officials" [3]. What prices did next is the reason this hold is under test. In Hiring Lab's analysis of consumer price index (CPI) components, the share of items with 12-month inflation below 2% has declined to 38%, items growing 2% to 4% sit at 32%, and items growing 4% or more sit at 30% as of September [1]. A chart in the September piece shows the four broad inflation measures, CPI, core CPI, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index and core PCE, each holding above 2% since 2021, through August 2026 [3]. Hiring Lab's verdict follows from those numbers. The pause, its analysts write, "raises some questions about policymakers' resolution to deliver timely price stability" [1].
The calendar from here
The next checkable item is the minutes. The minutes are the committee's own record of the discussion behind a statement, and they are the next document that could shift the reading of this hold. The Fed released the minutes of the September 15-16 meeting on October 7, three weeks after the decision [2]. The April 28-29 meeting's minutes followed the same pattern, arriving on May 20 [2]. The October 7 minutes ran three weeks behind a decision that moved rates. The next set follows one that did not. That cadence, a statement on decision day and minutes three weeks later, has held across the last two documented meetings, and it makes the October minutes the next dated release on the calendar. Then the cycle repeats at the next scheduled meeting. What readers can check today, before any of that arrives, is where the major markets stand.
Where the markets stand now
findailys quotes are delayed, not live, and the table below shows where each market stood when its quote was taken. The reading time in each row shows how fresh the number is.
<!-- Draft note: fill Quote, As-of and Status from the site's delayed feed at publish time; never hand-enter values. The Treasury yield row quotes in percent. -->
| Market | Currency | Quote | As of | Status | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Dow Jones Industrial Average | USD | — | — | — | | S&P 500 | USD | — | — | — | | Nasdaq Composite | USD | — | — | — | | US Dollar Index | USD | — | — | — | | 10-year Treasury yield | USD | — | — | — |
The hold is the committee's answer for now, and the evidence that can move it sits on the calendar. The minutes show how the committee talks through a decision, and the inflation readings arrive on their own schedule. Until one of them changes the picture, the question for stocks stays where this week opened, whether another hike follows.