Why I Don’t Trade SPX on FOMC Days Until After the Fed Announcement

By Charlie Nguyen · Published Oct 28, 2026 · Data through Oct 27, 2026 · 11 min read

FOMC days are some of the highest-stakes sessions of the year for SPX options traders. The rate decision, the statement, the dot plot and the Fed Chair’s press conference can push the S&P 500 hard, in both directions, inside two hours. My rule is simple: on FOMC day I don’t open new SPX trades until the statement and the press conference are over.

This isn’t fear of volatility. It’s the rule I learned as an advantage player: only bet when the edge is clear. Before 2:00 PM, the Fed’s decision is an unknown I’d be paying to gamble on. After the press conference, I can see the cards.

What happens on an FOMC day

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the group at the Federal Reserve that sets interest rates. It holds eight scheduled meetings a year, each over two days. On the second day:

• 2:00 PM ET: the FOMC statement. The rate decision and the policy statement come out together.
• 2:30 PM ET: the press conference. The Fed Chair takes questions. Since 2019 there has been one after every meeting.
• The dot plot, four times a year. In March, June, September and December the statement comes with the Summary of Economic Projections, including each official’s rate forecast.

The meeting minutes come out three weeks later, also at 2:00 PM ET. The upcoming dates are in the FOMC calendar below.

What the data says: SPX on Fed days since 2015

You’ll read a lot of round numbers about Fed days. I wanted real ones, so I measured every scheduled FOMC statement day from Jan 28, 2015 to Sep 16, 2026: 93 days, compared with every other trading day from 2015 through Oct 27, 2026. The range is the day’s high minus its low, as a percent of the prior close.

So a Fed day is busier, but not wildly so on average: the S&P 500’s typical range was about 1.34% versus 1.08%, and a 2%+ range happened about twice as often. In rough years it gets much bigger: from 2020 to 2022 (the pandemic, then the fastest rate hikes in decades), Fed days averaged a 1.83% range, and 44% of them moved 2% or more high to low.

The real story is when the move happens

The daily average hides the shape of the day. Using one-minute S&P 500 data for 89 of those Fed days, the morning is quieter than usual and the afternoon is far busier:

On 72% of Fed days, the two hours after 2:00 PM covered more ground than the four and a half hours before it. The pattern I trade around looks like this:

• A quiet morning. Ranges are tighter while everyone waits.
• A spike at 2:00 PM. Since 2019, the average one-minute move in the first five minutes after the statement was about 3.4× normal for that time of day.
• A second wave at 2:30 PM. The press conference half hour ran about 2.4× normal, busier than the half hour before it.
• A busier next day. The day after averaged a 1.24% range, a bit above normal.

Does the first move reverse?

A popular line says most first moves after the statement reverse. I checked. I took the S&P 500’s price at 1:59 PM, the direction it went right after the statement, and where it finished at 4:00 PM.

• First 5 minutes: the day closed on the other side of the 1:59 PM price 47% of the time.
• First 30 minutes (2:00 to 2:30, before the press conference): it fully reversed 39% of the time and gave back at least half 44% of the time.
• Big first moves (0.25% or more by 2:30) held up better: only 31% reversed.

So the first move is not a reliable “fade it” signal. It’s not a reliable “follow it” signal either. The quick 5-minute move is close to a coin flip, and I don’t bet on coin flips. That’s the whole reason I wait.

The pre-announcement trap: expected move and IV crush

The options market knows the Fed is coming, and it prices it in. The expected move (or implied move) is the quick way to see how much. Add the at-the-money call and put for that expiration and divide by the index price.

Here’s a real one. At the Oct 27, 2026 close, the night before the Oct 28, 2026 statement, the SPXW 7,725 straddle expiring Oct 28, 2026 cost about $45.15. That’s roughly 0.58% of SPX at 7,722.60. Its implied volatility was about 23%, against 18.5% for the next day’s expiration. That gap is the Fed premium. For scale, SPX’s median close-to-close move on Fed days since 2015 was 0.56%.

Today’s implied volatility context for SPX:

Once the statement is out, the unknown is gone and that extra premium drains away. That’s IV crush. It cuts both ways:

• Option buyers pay for the event up front. They can be right on direction and still lose, because the move has to beat what was already priced in.
• Option sellers collect that premium, but they’re exposed at the worst moment. If the move is bigger than priced, a short straddle or a tight iron condor can be deep underwater within minutes, before any crush helps.

Gamma, dealer hedging and vanna, without the hype

Fed-day commentary is full of Greek letters. Here’s what’s solid and what’s a guess.

• Gamma is real, and it’s the big one. Gamma is how fast an option’s delta changes as the price moves. It’s highest for at-the-money options close to expiration, so same-day SPX options near the money are extremely sensitive. A short put spread that looked safe at 1:55 PM can be at the money by 2:05 PM.
• Dealer hedging can push either way. Market makers hedge their deltas. If they’re net short gamma, hedging means selling into drops and buying into rallies, which can add to a move. If they’re net long gamma, it works the other way and calms things down. Nobody outside sees their full book, so “dealer positioning” numbers are estimates.
• Vanna is a theory worth knowing, not a rule. Vanna is how delta changes when implied volatility changes. When IV falls after the event, out-of-the-money options lose delta, and hedges tied to them get unwound. Some traders think that flow can help drive the move after the event. It can happen; its size and direction depend on positioning nobody can see.
• Quotes can get wider. Market makers can widen or pull quotes right around a big release, so fills on short-dated options can be worse exactly when you’d want to adjust.

I don’t trade on Greek folklore. I trade on one simple fact: near expiration, near the money, at 2:00 PM on Fed day, small moves turn into big P&L swings.

Why I wait until after

I let the statement and the press conference finish, watch the first spike and any second wave, and only then look for a setup. By then:

• The event premium is gone. What I sell is priced for normal risk, not for a coin flip.
• The news is known. The market has heard the statement and the Chair’s tone.
• Quotes are usually back to normal, so I can get filled near the mid.
• The biggest unknown of the week is behind me. That doesn’t make the direction certain, but it removes the one event I can’t handicap.

Sizing matters too. A position sized for a normal SPX session can be oversized on Fed day, because the afternoon range on Fed days is more than twice its normal size. Waiting is the simplest way to avoid that.

How I time my SPX put credit spreads around the Fed

My style is mechanical, probability-driven and defined-risk: SPX put credit spreads at 1, 7 and 45 days to expiration. On FOMC day I don’t open new spreads in the morning, at any DTE. I look to open after the statement and the press conference. Here’s how each one handles the Fed:

• 1 DTE. I don’t open one before the event. I look to open it after the press conference.
• 7 DTE. If the next statement falls inside the seven days, I stand aside on new weeklies until after the release, whatever the chart says.
• 45 DTE. One Fed meeting inside 45 days is normal, so I don’t skip the trade. I don’t open it that morning, though. I look to open it after the event, sized so a Fed-day swing can’t hurt me.

The SPX Desk runs this FOMC check for me every day: it flags when the next statement falls inside a 1 or 7 DTE trade and shows the closest Fed day. Its trade cards show POP, POT and P50 for each spread; here’s what POP, POT and P50 mean. And why I stick to SPX in the first place is in why I trade SPX, SPY, QQQ and IBIT options.

Practical takeaways for SPX traders

1. Treat the morning as a no-trade zone. I don’t open new spreads before the statement, at any DTE.
2. Don’t buy options at peak event premium just before 2:00 PM. You’re paying for the move up front.
3. Don’t hold short options near the money through 2:00 PM without a hedge or defined risk.
4. Don’t trust the first five minutes. In the data, it’s close to a coin flip.
5. Let the press conference finish before you size up.
6. After the dust settles, use defined risk: credit spreads or directional spreads, sized for a bigger-than-normal day.

FOMC days reward patience more than prediction. The better SPX setups usually show up after the event, not before it. That’s why I stay flat until the statement and the press conference are done.

FOMC dates for 2026 and 2027

Scheduled statement days from the Federal Reserve’s calendar. The statement is at 2:00 PM ET and the press conference at 2:30 PM ET.

Sources and method: FOMC dates from federalreserve.gov (meeting calendars and the 2015–2020 historical pages, checked Oct 28, 2026); scheduled statement days only, unscheduled 2020 meetings excluded. Daily S&P 500 (^GSPC) highs, lows and closes from Yahoo Finance, Jan 2, 2015 to Oct 27, 2026. One-minute S&P 500 bars from HistData.com (SPXUSD), regular hours only; they track the index closely (median close difference 0.03% versus ^GSPC). Expected move from Cboe’s delayed SPX option quotes at the Oct 27, 2026 close (mid prices). Past behavior doesn’t predict any single Fed day.

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