10x What Matters

10x What Matters

The First Fed Hike Is Never the Shock: What History Says About September's Fed Decision

Institutional Cross-Asset Market Intelligence

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10x Research
Sep 14, 2026
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This report is part of our cross-asset “What Matters” publication, a new, differentiated product available via a separate subscription. To access the full analysis, please upgrade below or contact us at info@10xresearch.com with any questions.


The bond market is already pricing an 86% probability that the Fed hikes on September 16, off a CPI print so marginal it could have rounded the other way. That’s an aggressive bet for what looks, on the surface, like a single data point. But history tells a different story.

So what actually happens to stocks, the dollar, gold, and Bitcoin in the weeks and months after a “first” hike? We went back through every cycle since 1994 and mapped the reaction, day by day, asset by asset, and the pattern that emerges has almost nothing to do with the hike itself, and everything to do with what comes after it.

Full analysis, data tables, and our read on positioning across equities, gold, Bitcoin, USD, and Treasuries available to 10x Research subscribers.

Traders priced in 3.8 Fed rate hikes - what does it mean for your assets?

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