FED Announcement – Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) that determines interest rate changes for the US economy. From a trading perspective, the minutes are typically distributed to the market at 2pm on the relevant trading day – and tend to be market moving. There is typically increased volatility before the meeting, which makes the index implied volatility act in a similar to an earnings announcement on an individual stock. The FOMC meeting occurs eight times a year.

DailyFX has a nice calendar of the upcoming FED announcements and also announcements for other worldwide major central banks.