Separate the decision from the tone; they affect mortgage rates differently. The Fed sets a short-term rate, while mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury, which is why a cut or a hold rarely moves mortgage pricing the way people expect. By the time a meeting arrives, the market has usually priced in the likely decision, so the bigger reaction comes from the surrounding message: the projections, the dot plot, and the chair's press conference. A tone read as hawkish (worried about inflation, slow to ease) tends to push the 10-year yield up, while a dovish tone tends to pull it down. The 10-year also has psychological levels that traders defend, round numbers like 4% that carry no technical magic but that the market clearly wants to hold. Popping just above or dipping just below one of those lines can drive an outsized move on the day even when nothing fundamental changed. So the durable answer for any Fed day: watch whether the bond market read the Fed as hawkish or dovish, and watch the 10-year against those psychological levels, because that is what flows through to mortgage rates. And go easy on reading a lasting trend into one day's move; a single reaction often reverses.