On FOMC days, the period between the statement at 14:00 New York and the press conference at 14:30 is one of the most difficult windows for short-term traders.
What usually happens:
14:00–14:02: spreads widen, algorithms react to the decision and wording changes.
14:02–14:30: the market digests the statement and, at quarterly meetings, the projections. Moves can extend or retrace.
14:30 onward: the chair's opening remarks and answers can reverse the initial move entirely.
Risk considerations:
Any position opened after the statement is exposed to the press conference.
Stops may slip significantly in both phases.
The day's range is often set after 14:30, not at 14:00.
Many scalpers simply stay flat from 13:55 until 15:00 New York and trade only if a clear trend forms afterwards.
How do you handle the gap between the statement and the press conference?
I stay flat through the whole window too, but I widened it after one meeting where the move at 14:00 reversed by 14:40 and then reversed again near 15:20. The press conference often runs close to an hour, so 15:00 can land in the middle of the questions.
My rule now is no new position until ten minutes after the chair finishes speaking. Some days that means sitting out until nearly 15:45 New York, and I accept missing the cleaner trends that start earlier.
The part of the map I would add is anything carried into the statement. A position held into 14:00 is exposed to both phases, and the slippage risk on a stop placed 15 pips away is much larger than those 15 pips suggest.
On quarterly meetings the dot plot adds another layer. I have seen the median dot shift by one cut and the dollar react harder to that than to the decision itself, which was fully priced.
Does anyone trade the first hour of Tokyo after a meeting instead? I find USDJPY more readable there, though spreads stay wider than usual.
