Trillions of dollars moved around in the past few days. Every media outlet said a 0.75% rate hike was being priced into the market.  And what do you know... it comes true.

GDP and unemployment numbers are kept close to the chest.  I clearly remember the media roasting the Trump administration for announcing those numbers early once.  

But when everyone is in lock step before the most important number on Earth is announced, it's perfectly normal?  Am I the crazy one?

If everyone knew what they knew when they knew it, it would be a level playing field. You are not in that club.

It’s normal. The markets are always trying to get ahead of things like the Fed rate hikes. When you look at the CPI being announced before the fed met, and the numbers were so bad, the market knew then that a big rate hike was coming. Plus the fed likes to telegraph their actions so they don’t spook the markets. Powell has been saying for a long time that they could expect a .5% hike, but if inflation data supported it they would go higher.

Just people paying attention before vs after the fact.

you just got to know a guy who knows a guy that owns a gorilla suit and has the orange juice crop report

Sadly this reference will be lost on a great number of folks here.  

@kmcd99

If everyone was in lock step and it was priced in perfectly, markets would not have risen 1.5% within moments of the announcement. They were depressed prior to the announcement precisely due to uncertainty.