The Federal Open Market Committee held its target rate unchanged at 3.5–3.75% for a third consecutive meeting, but three regional bank presidents — Hammack, Kashkari, and Logan — dissented not on the rate decision itself but on language around the policy outlook, the most dissents recorded at a single Fed meeting since 1992. The meeting is widely expected to be Jerome Powell's last as chair, with Kevin Warsh's Senate confirmation pending.
For Armada's traditional repo desk, the immediate SOFR fixing is unlikely to shift materially, but the dissent pattern signals a fractured committee that may resist the rate cuts the Trump administration is pressuring Warsh to deliver. Term repo pricing and haircut assumptions tied to the front end of the curve should be reviewed for scenarios where a new chair faces internal gridlock or pushes cuts over hawk dissent, both of which create rate volatility that compresses repo spreads.