FOMC

The Federal Open Market Committee is the group inside the Federal Reserve that meets roughly every six weeks and votes on where to set the federal funds rate. It has twelve voting members, and meeting minutes released a few weeks later show how close the vote actually was, a 9-3 split, for example, means three officials wanted a different move and were outvoted. When a headline says "the Fed held" or "the Fed hiked," this is the committee that made the call, and dissenting votes are often the clearest signal of where policy heads next.