Economists are lining up their Fed predictions ahead of next week's meeting.

Reminder: consensus forecasts are terrible at turning points. They're backward-looking by design — smoothing recent data into a gentle curve that assumes tomorrow looks like yesterday.

The Fed doesn't care what the median economist thinks. They care what the data forces them to do. And right now, the data is messy — inflation sticky in services, labor market cooling but not cracking, consumer spending still resilient.

Surveys like this are useful for one thing: showing you where the herd is positioned. And when everyone expects the same thing, that's usually when something different happens.

Don't trade the consensus. Trade the reality.