The “Fed” makes headlines periodically, but the decision-making and data from the Federal Reserve are a regular part of the weekly meetings of the Piton Investment Team. The PIT’s perspective is fundamentally to follow what the Federal Reserve is doing and work to anticipate how those decisions will change or create opportunities for Piton’s client investors.
The “Dot Plot”
For example, one of the resources that Piton’s Investment Committee regularly consults, the “dot plot.” Every quarter the nineteen members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are surveyed about their expectations for the benchmark interest rate (the federal funds rate) at the time and into the future. The responses are compiled and published (without linking individual members to individual votes) in a chart known as the “dot plot” , for more detailed information about this publication, visit. Piton’s Senior Vice-President of Research, Chuck D. Etzweiler, MBA, CIMA®, CFP®, CMT, summarizes why analyzing this chart can be so helpful: “In recent years we have found that the data on the dot plot correspond pretty well with the direction and decisions that the FOMC makes about the federal funds rate. That rate in turn tends to correlate to the interest rates on other types of loans.” Chuck then explains how this helps investing clients. “Interest rates on loans impact a lot of different businesses. If a business will be operating with a lot of money from loans, a change in interest rates can change how much they spend on interest for a loan. That means every time interest rates change, it changes what businesses represent potential best opportunities for our clients’ investments. There is no magic formula. Every time there is a change, we have to do a deep dive into a lot of businesses, but the impact of interest rates is one of the items that we analyze.”
Fed forecasts and more
The Federal Reserve plays a role in many areas of finance, and there are other Fed tools that do not generate as many headlines but are helpful for Piton’s investment analysis. For example, two of the Federal Reserve Banks publish regular projections about the U.S. Gross Domestic Product ( the New York Fed and the Atlanta Fed ). The Cleveland Fed regularly posts “nowcasts” about inflation, which include data and figures that the members of the FOMC analyze in making their decisions (and there are also data services beyond the public, government ones that the Team consults for additional data or a chance to observe trends earlier. So watch in future blog posts for up-to-date perspectives on the actions and impact of the Federal Reserve!
For more on how the Piton team follows the Fed, check out the September 2025 issue of Fresh Advice, Piton’s free, public newsletter .
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the branch of the Federal Reserve System that determines the direction of monetary policy. The FOMC has 12 voting members, including all seven members of the Board of Governors and a rotating group of five Reserve Bank presidents. The Chair of the Board of Governors also serves as Chair of the FOMC.
Gross domestic product (GDP) is the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period. As a broad measure of overall domestic production, it functions as a comprehensive scorecard of a given country’s economic health.