Fed Blackout Period Starts October 17: What the S&P 500 Did in the Two Weeks Before All 213 Fed Decisions Since 2000

The Federal Reserve's blackout period for the October 27-28 meeting begins Saturday, October 17, and runs through Thursday, October 29. For twelve days no Fed official speaks about the economy or policy in public, and the market is left with the data it already has: a 3.7% CPI print, a ten-year yield above 5%, and a futures market still split over whether the Fed hikes again on the 28th.

People search for what stocks do during the blackout as if the quiet itself moves prices. So we measured it. We took every scheduled Fed decision since February 2000, 213 of them, and asked what the S&P 500 did in the ten trading days before each one, on the decision day, and in the week after. The short answer is that the blackout window looks like any other two weeks. The decision day does not. It is education, not advice.

What the Fed blackout period is, and the dates for October 2026

The blackout is a rule the Federal Open Market Committee sets for itself in its policy on external communications: starting the second Saturday before a scheduled meeting and ending the Thursday after it, participants and staff do not give speeches, interviews or testimony on monetary policy or the economic outlook. For the October 27-28 meeting that is Saturday, October 17 through Thursday, October 29. The decision and statement arrive at 2:00 PM Eastern on Wednesday, October 28, with the press conference at 2:30.

The purpose is to stop a stray remark from moving markets in the days when the committee is forming its view. The side effect is a stretch of trading with no Fed voices at all, which is exactly when the Fed-watching habit turns on itself: every data release and every headline gets read as a clue about the 28th. The October meeting preview lays out what is live at this one.

The study: the S&P 500 before, on and after 213 Fed decisions

Method: every scheduled FOMC decision date from February 2000 through September 2026, taken from the Fed's meeting calendars (unscheduled emergency moves, such as March 2020 and the 2001 intermeeting cuts, are excluded because they have no blackout). S&P 500 daily closes from Yahoo Finance. The blackout window is the ten trading days ending the day before the decision, roughly the two weeks the rule covers. Each figure is compared with the same measure taken on every trading day since 2000, so the comparison is against the market's own base rate, not against zero.

• The blackout window is an ordinary two weeks. The index rose in 60% of the 213 pre-decision windows, with a median gain of +0.7%. Across all 6,727 ten-day windows since 2000 it rose 60% of the time with a median of +0.6%. The difference is noise.
• Decision day is a coin flip with bigger stakes. The S&P 500 closed higher on 52% of decision days, against 54% of all days, and the median move was +0.04%. But the size of the move is larger: 34% of decision days moved 1% or more in either direction, against 28% of ordinary days. The Fed does not tilt the direction; it widens the range.
• The week after is unremarkable too. Five trading days after a decision the index was higher 54% of the time with a median of +0.2%, slightly below the 57% and +0.3% of all five-day windows. Whatever the Fed said, the market had mostly absorbed it by the close.
• The decade matters more than the calendar. Pre-decision windows were positive only 46% of the time in the 2000s, a decade with two bear markets, then 70% in the 2010s and 66% so far this decade. That is the trend of the era showing through, not a Fed effect.
• The extremes were about the world, not the Fed. The worst pre-decision window was the 16.3% drop into the August 9, 2011 meeting, during the US debt-ceiling downgrade; the index then rose 4.7% on the decision day. The best was the 11.7% rally into March 18, 2009, the week the bear market ended. The worst decision day in the set was December 18, 2024 at -2.9%, when the Fed cut but signaled fewer cuts ahead; the best was December 16, 2008 at +5.1%, the day rates went to zero.

2026: six decisions, six red closes

This year is the outlier. The S&P 500 has closed lower on every one of the six decision days of 2026 (January 28 was flat to the second decimal, the other five fell between 0.4% and 1.5%). That is one short of the longest run in the series: seven straight down decision days ending with the December 19, 2018 meeting, the last time the Fed was hiking into a falling market.

The pre-decision windows this year were down four times out of six, and the week after was up four times out of six, including a 5.6% gain after the July 29 decision. None of that is a pattern to trade; six observations is six observations. It does say that in a hiking year with a 3.7% CPI, the decision day has carried more downside than the long-run coin flip suggests, which matters for how much risk you hold into 2:00 PM on October 28. The September CPI post has the number the committee will be looking at.

What to do with the blackout if you trade by rules

• Do not change your rules because the Fed went quiet. The two weeks before a decision have behaved like any other two weeks for 26 years: up about 60% of the time, median gain under a percent. A plan that is right on October 16 is right on October 19.
• Size for October 28, not around it. One decision day in three moves 1% or more, against one ordinary day in four. The direction is a coin flip, so the useful preparation is a position size that can take a 1% to 2% move either way without forcing a decision. That is a position-sizing question first.
• Stops, not forecasts. A stop decides where a trade is wrong before 2:00 PM arrives; a forecast of the Fed's wording does not. The stop-loss guide covers the mechanics, including why a market-hours wick through a stop is the risk on decision afternoons.
• Ignore the 'wait for the Fed' urge. Sitting out the blackout costs the market's normal drift and buys nothing: the window has had the same odds as any other. The record of how often the market goes up is the base rate that argues against stepping aside for events.

If you would rather have those rules enforced for you, with stops, a daily loss brake and position caps applied inside the brokerage account you already have, that is what JorgAI does. You can set them once and the rules hold through the blackout and through 2:00 PM on the 28th.

Quick answers

When is the Fed blackout period for the October 2026 meeting? Saturday, October 17 through Thursday, October 29, 2026. The meeting is October 27-28 and the decision is announced at 2:00 PM Eastern on Wednesday, October 28.

What is the Fed blackout period? The stretch, from the second Saturday before a scheduled FOMC meeting to the Thursday after it, when Fed officials and staff do not speak publicly about monetary policy or the economic outlook. It is set by the committee's own communications policy.

Does the stock market go up before Fed meetings? About as often as at any other time. Since 2000 the S&P 500 rose in 60% of the ten-day windows before a scheduled decision, against 60% of all ten-day windows, with nearly identical median gains.

How much does the S&P 500 move on Fed decision day? The median close-to-close move is near zero and the direction is a coin flip (52% up), but 34% of decision days moved 1% or more, compared with 28% of ordinary days. The widest were +5.1% (December 16, 2008) and -2.9% (December 18, 2024).

Has the market fallen on every Fed decision day in 2026? Yes. All six decision days this year closed lower, one of them essentially flat. The pre-decision windows were down four of six and the week after was up four of six.

Data: scheduled FOMC decision dates from the Federal Reserve's meeting calendars, February 2000 through September 2026 (213 decisions, emergency decisions excluded); S&P 500 daily closes from Yahoo Finance (^GSPC) through October 15, 2026; returns over the ten trading days before each decision, the decision day and five days after, measured by JorgAI and compared with every ten-day, one-day and five-day window since 2000. Past patterns do not predict future returns. This article is education, not investment advice.