Factbox-Major brokerages expect Fed to hold rates ahead of policy meeting

Oct 28 (Reuters) - Global brokerages expect the US Federal Reserve to keep interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, with BofA Global Research one of the only outliers among Wall Street majors. The Fed's October decision is in focus ahead of the midterm elections, as energy prices and tariffs stoke cos

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Oct 28 (Reuters) - Global brokerages expect the US Federal Reserve to keep interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, with BofA Global Research one of the only outliers among Wall Street majors.

The Fed's October decision is in focus ahead of the midterm elections, as energy prices and tariffs stoke cost-of-living concerns.

The current interest rate stands in the 3.75%-4% range.

Interest-rate futures are pricing in a roughly 9.4% chance of a rate increase at the October meeting and an 86.2% probability

of a move in December, according to CME's FedWatch data.

Here are the forecasts from major brokerages for 2026:

Brokerage Total hikes in No. of hikes Fed funds rate

2026 in 2026

BofA Global 50 bps of hikes 2 (October 4.25%-4.50%

Research and

December)

Goldman Sachs 25 bp rate hike 1 (December) 4.00%-4.25%

J.P.Morgan 25 bp rate hike 1 4.00%-4.25%

(December)

Nomura 25 bp rate hike 1 4.00%-4.25%

(December)

HSBC 25 bp rate hike 1 4.00%-4.25%

(December)

Barclays 25 bp rate hike 1 4.00%-4.25%

(December)

Deutsche Bank 25 bp rate hike 1 4.00%-4.25%

(December)

UBS Global Wealth 25 bp rate hike 1 (December) 4.00%-4.25%

Management

UBS Global 25 bp rate hike 1 4.00%-4.25%

Research (December)

Morgan Stanley 25 bp rate hike 1 4.00%-4.25%

(December)

Macquarie 25 bp rate hike 1 4.00%-4.25%

(December)

Standard Chartered 25 bp rate hike 1 (December) 4.00%-4.25%

Citigroup 25 bp rate hike 1 (December) 4.00%-4.25%

(Compiled by the Broker Research team in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli, Eileen Soreng, Joyjeet Das, Harikrishnan Nair, Pooja Desai, Devika Syamnath and Tasim Zahid)