Central Bank Policy Hub

Interest rates are the price of money — and every currency pair is really a bet on which central bank is paying more for it. When a bank hikes, holds, or cuts, or even just shifts its tone, global capital repositions to chase the better return, and that flow is what moves the pair on your chart.

The rate decision itself is only half the story. Every one of these eight banks also publishes a quarterly forecast document — the Fed's dot plot (Summary of Economic Projections), the ECB's staff macroeconomic projections, and the monetary policy reports most other central banks release alongside their decisions. That's where the real forward guidance lives — growth and inflation projections, the balance of risks, hints at what the committee does next — and it's often what moves markets days or weeks before the next headline decision even lands.

Understanding monetary policy is part of the job of being a trader — it's not background reading, it's fundamental to your edge. Knowing what a bank has already signalled, and what the market is pricing in, is what lets you form a view ahead of the next decision instead of reacting to the headline after it's already moved the pair. Combine that with the COT Report and Seasonal Bias, and it becomes a real directional edge, not a guess.