A real question, with a fixed evidence date
The worked example asks: Will there be no change in Fed interest rates after the October 2026 meeting? HowSure Check fed-october-20261010-v2 preserves the venue description retained on October 10, 2026, and a Federal Reserve calendar reading reviewed that day at 22:48 UTC. It identifies the October 27–28 meeting.
That version supports a reading of the conditions and schedule. It does not verify the October policy decision. Its amendment re-read the calendar but retained the earlier venue description; it did not establish fresh venue status. This guide uses that fixed version so you can inspect the same evidence. Before applying it to a current position or research task, compare the selected contract with its latest terms.
Separate four questions before drawing a conclusion
A useful explanation keeps the following questions separate. Each needs its own evidence; answering one does not automatically answer the next.
- Contract: which rate, meeting, comparison baseline and exceptions does this particular market specify? Read the complete description and outcome labels.
- Calendar: when is the named meeting scheduled? The official calendar read for this guide lists October 27–28, 2026; a schedule is not a policy decision.
- Decision: what does the relevant FOMC statement establish about the target range? Retain the statement and the evidence for the range immediately beforehand.
- Settlement: has Polymarket finalized this exact market? Its help documentation describes an outcome proposal and a challenge process. A policy statement alone is not a record of completed venue resolution.
Measure the upper bound against the right baseline
This October contract explicitly selects the upper end of the target federal funds range. It compares that level after the named meeting with the level immediately before it. Substituting the midpoint, lower end or an overnight effective-rate observation would answer a different question.
For a hypothetical calculation, suppose the range immediately before a meeting is 4.25–4.50%, and the decision changes it to 4.00–4.25%. The upper bound moves from 4.50% to 4.25%: a decrease of 0.25 percentage points, or 25 basis points. If it stays at 4.50%, the upper-bound change is zero. These invented values illustrate the arithmetic; they are not October 2026 observations.
The Federal Reserve also publishes a target-rate change table, which this contract names. Check the dates and distinguish a statement's release from an effective-date entry. A rate visible days before a future meeting is provisional context: an intervening action could change the required baseline.
Read the rounding example before assigning a bracket
The retained terms address a change outside the displayed options by rounding upward to the nearest 25-basis-point bracket. Their example treats a 12.5-basis-point cut or increase as 25 basis points. Direction still matters: a cut is not an increase.
Keep the complete outcome list beside the rule. An irregular observation without the displayed options is an incomplete basis for assigning a payout bracket. HowSure's current decision reading keeps an irregular move's bracket unknown rather than inventing the missing mapping. This is a reason to inspect more evidence, not evidence that the rate was unchanged.
No statement is a separate contractual exception
The October description allows resolution after the relevant FOMC statement appears. It also assigns the No change bracket if no statement has been released by the end date of the next scheduled meeting. That fallback is different from observing a decision to hold rates.
The calendar read on October 16 lists December 8–9 after the October meeting. This identifies the next listed meeting in that reading, not proof that the fallback has occurred. Recheck any schedule change and establish whether the relevant statement exists. The retained terms give no exact cutoff time or timezone; the catalogue's end timestamp cannot supply them. A failed fetch, a missing cached link or an unavailable source does not establish absence of a statement through the deadline.
A yearly cut-count market asks something else
Do not transfer these rules to every market with Fed in its title. HowSure's separate October 11 Check of the 2026 two-cut contract records a different unit: one 50-basis-point reduction counts as two cut units. That annual contract also includes emergency reductions through December 31, 2026, at 11:59 PM ET.
An unchanged October meeting can therefore coexist with two qualifying cuts elsewhere in the year. Shared subject matter does not make the markets contradictory or equivalent. Compare their measurement units, windows, exceptional cases and source requirements before treating their prices as competing answers.
Keep a result another person or agent can check
Open the dated Check to inspect its full question, conditions, source passages and limitations. Its public JSON endpoint returns the same named version without an API key. The request below reads that record; it does not refresh the October decision or establish settlement.
For your own task, find the exact meeting and outcome in Explore. Read its conditions and official sources, then retain the market identity, source URLs, observation times, before-and-after values and unresolved questions. Separate any probability assessment you add from what the sources establish. Saving the version gives a later reviewer a concrete basis to compare when the evidence changes.
curl --fail 'https://www.howsure.com/api/free/v1/checks/fed-october-20261010-v2'Sources & verification
- HowSure October Fed Check, version 2 — retained terms and October 10 review
- Original Polymarket October contract — live terms may differ from the retained version
- Federal Reserve FOMC calendar — read October 16, 2026
- Federal Reserve target-rate change tables — read October 16, 2026
- Polymarket resolution process — read October 16, 2026
- HowSure annual Fed cut-count Check — October 11 review
Sources and instructions checked 16 October 2026. Live responses can change. Editorial method and limitations.