The biggest shocker in today's Fed announcement is not that the Fed did not hike: that was telegraphed far away. It is highlighted on the chart below in red: for the first time ever, one FOMC predicts negative rates in 2015 and 2016. Was is permadove Kocherlakota: probably not, he is out next year... In retrospect, this too should come as no surprise: over the weekend we asked if "Yellen About To Shock Everyone: Goldman Says The "Fed Should Think About Easing." The lack of a hike was not a shock, but the negative dot, oh yes. And earlier today we hinted at just this: NIRP: Q. Can an ON RRP operation have a negative stopout rate? A. Yes http://t.co/hRvY3Lx9eG — zerohedge (@zerohedge) https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/644509315487952896!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); So: instead of QE4 - forget hikes - is the Fed going to shock us with NIRP in the coming months?