Deutsche Bank Guesses Who's Who On The Fed's Infamous Dots Chart

Last week's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee caused a stir in the markets, in part because FOMC members pulled forward their forecasts on the likely path of rate hikes.

The FOMC conveys this information via what is known as "the dots" - a graph that shows each member's individual forecasts plotted alongside everyone else's. The chart is not labeled with actual names, but Deutsche Bank economists Joe LaVorgna and Carl Riccadonna attempted to match names with dots.

"In light of recent comments from various policymakers, we have made some adjustments to our assessment of where policymakers stand on the Fed's "dot plot" of fed funds expectations, they write in a note to clients.

"We have now moved Evans to a more dovish position compared to Rosengren, and we also swapped Yellen with Williams to reflect the renewed dovishness apparent in her latest remarks. Plosser also told us that he is the high dot for 2015. While Yellen did not specifically address her 'six months' comment from the press conference Q&A, which led market participants to believe she was contemplating compressing the timeline between the end of taper and the start of rate hikes, her subsequent comments made it clear she see is in no rush to begin raising rates. Furthermore, it will take considerable improvement in an array of labor data to convince her otherwise."

FRB & DB Global Markets Research