The dot plot is eagerly dissected by Fed watchers looking for insight on future policy, but others think that the dot plot has become a visual example of just how little the Fed can predict where ...

For example, each dot in the "2020" column on the dot plot (see below) indicates one official's prediction for where the benchmark federal funds rate will be at the end of that year.

The Fed’s dot plot is a chart that records each Fed official’s projection for the central bank’s key short-term interest rate. The dot plot is updated every three months and is meant to ...

The more important point to take away from the Fed's dot plot is the fact that the people in charge of monetary policy expect interest rates to rise in the future. Take 2017 as an example.

Yahoo Finance Live's Julie Hyman breaks down how to make sense of the Federal Reserve's 'Dot Plot' or Summary of Economic Projections.

Watching the Dot Plots The dot plots may hold clues about how confident the Fed is about a continued downtrend in inflation leaving room for rate cuts.

For example, this week’s dot plot showed that 9 of the 17 thought the appropriate Fed funds range by the end of 2016 would be the range between 0.75% and 1.0%. They called that the median.

The dot plot is best explained with an example, so to illustrate how it works, here's a real-world example of a Federal Reserve dot plot and how to interpret it.

The Fed’s dot plot is a chart updated quarterly that records each Fed official’s projection for the central bank’s key short-term interest rate, the federal funds rate.