Here come the Fed's dots...

The Federal Reserve is scheduled to announce its most recent monetary policy decision at 2:00 PM ET.

While everyone will be looking to see whether or not the FOMC will remain "patient" in considering whether or not to raise interest rates in future meetings, we'll also get an update on what individual members of the committee think will happen over the next few years.

The Dot Plot, part of the FOMC's Summary of Economic Projections released along with the policy decision statement, shows where each participant in the meeting thinks the federal funds rate should be at the end of the year for the next few years and in the longer run.

While the Dot Plot is not an official policy tool, it provides some insight into how the committee members feel about economic and monetary conditions going forward.

Recent dot plots have shown a lot of disagreement about what should happen over the next two or three years, with target rates for the end of 2016 ranging anywhere between 0.25% and 4%. There's been a bit more consensus about the longer run, with projections hovering between 3.25 and 4.25%.

We'll update this post when the new version of the plot is out. Here's the most recent plot, from the December 17, 2014 meeting:

Federal Reserve

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