Fed Funds Rate Decision Days

Below we highlight the S&P 500's performance on days when the Fed has made a Fed Funds Rate decision since August 8th, 2006 when the Fed stopped its long period of hiking rates. We also include the index's change in the week after the close on the FOMC day. As shown, the average change in the S&P 500 on these days has been 0.46% since 8/06. During the current easing cycle, the index has been up three times and down four times. The days when the market has been up have generally been big up days (2.9%, 1.2% and 4.1%).