Central bank

Central bank communications are forex-defining events. Minutes, speeches, and projections can move pairs more than the rate decisions themselves, because the decision is usually priced long before it lands and the *path* is not. Pay attention to governor tone: hawkish vs dovish language moves markets before any actual rate change. ### Who actually moves your pairs - **Fed (US).** The FOMC holds eight scheduled meetings a year. The statement is released at 2:00 p.m. ET, the Chair's press conference follows at 2:30 p.m. ET, and the minutes are published three weeks after the decision. Four of the eight meetings (March, June, September, December) also carry the Summary of Economic Projections. Mandate: maximum employment and stable prices. - **ECB (euro).** Governing Council monetary policy meetings run roughly every six weeks. The decision is published at 14:15 CET, the press conference is at 14:45 CET. Primary objective is price stability, with a symmetric 2% target over the medium term, meaning overshoots and undershoots are treated as equally unwelcome. - **BoE (UK).** The nine-member MPC meets eight times a year and publishes the decision, the minutes, and the individual vote split together at 12:00 noon UK time. - **BoJ (Japan).** Eight Monetary Policy Meetings a year, and crucially **no fixed announcement time**: the statement lands whenever the board finishes deliberating. That uncertainty is itself a source of yen volatility. - **RBA (Australia).** The Monetary Policy Board meets eight times a year, with the cash rate decision published at 2:30 pm Sydney time, targeting inflation of 2 to 3 per cent alongside full employment. ### The quiet period nobody watches Officials go silent before a decision. The FOMC's external-communications policy puts participants in a blackout from the second Saturday before a meeting until the day after it. That is why Fed speakers cluster in the stretch between meetings and then vanish, and why the repricing restarts the moment they reappear. ### Why the tone beats the number A committee can leave rates untouched and still move a pair hard by changing a few words in a statement, revising a projection, or splitting a nine-person vote 5 to 4 instead of 9 to 0. Nothing happened to the rate. Everything happened to the expected path. ### For your trading day You are not forecasting policy. You are avoiding being on the wrong side of a scheduled repricing. Know which two central banks own your pair (for EURUSD that is the Fed and the ECB), check the economic calendar before you sit down, expect the news candle, and let the level come to you afterwards.