The Fed Interest Rate Decision on Wednesday 28 October is the release with the largest typical 15-minute move this week for EUR/USD, USD/JPY and gold. An MQL5 blog post measures those reactions over the last 3 years. It treats them as history, not a forecast.
The Fed Interest Rate Decision, due Wednesday 28 October at 18:00 UTC, is the release that has typically moved EUR/USD, USD/JPY and gold the most among this week's high-impact events. The study looks at the median distance between the price at the release minute and the close 15 minutes later. EUR/USD and USD/JPY are measured in pips, gold in US dollars.
Fed decision brings the biggest typical reaction
After the decision, EUR/USD has shown a median move of 15.8 pips 15 minutes later. USD/JPY's median is 23.8 pips, and gold's is 8.43 US dollars. In one release out of four, the moves exceeded 26.0 pips, 42.2 pips and 13.27 US dollars respectively, across 24 releases since 2023.
The Wednesday 18:30 UTC FOMC press conference follows with smaller typical reactions. EUR/USD has moved a median of 12.2 pips, USD/JPY 16.7 pips and gold 7.62 US dollars, according to the same study.
Thursday packs several releases into one window
Three USD releases come out at 12:30 UTC on Thursday: Initial Jobless Claims, Gross Domestic Product q/q and Core PCE Price Index m/m. Each figure was measured on that release's own history, so on this day they share one market move. The ECB Deposit Rate Decision follows at 13:15 UTC, with a median EUR/USD move of 6.3 pips and a previous rate of 2.50%.
EUR/USD and gold both moved the way the calendar rated the actual value after Initial Jobless Claims more often than chance, in 84 of 145 and 91 of 146 releases respectively. USD/JPY did the same after Tokyo Core CPI y/y, in 22 of 30 releases.
How the numbers are built
The study draws releases and times from the economic calendar built into MetaTrader 5, high importance only. Prices come from one broker's MT5 demo feed, so other brokers' numbers will differ slightly. The source states that nothing on the page is a trading signal.
Source: MQL5: Traders' Blogs
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