FOMC minutes: the quiet one that still moves things

[Shadow Trader]

The minutes of the Federal Reserve's policy meetings are published about three weeks after each decision. Because they describe the discussion in some detail, they can reveal how close the committee was to a different decision or how divided it was.

Markets sometimes react sharply, particularly if the tone differs from the post-meeting press conference. A passage suggesting more members favoured a rate move than expected can shift expectations fast.

The release time is fixed and the reaction is usually less explosive than the original decision, but it can still produce 20 to 40 pips in dollar pairs. Spreads widen a little, and the move can build over minutes as analysts parse the text.

Because the event appears on calendars with a medium impact tag, it catches inattentive traders. A glance at the calendar each morning prevents unpleasant surprises.

Reading the minutes before the release, or at least scanning a good summary right after, helps interpret the reaction. Words like "many participants" and "some participants" carry specific weight in Fed language, and market commentators decode them quickly.

Do FOMC minutes get treated as a major event or a minor one, and has a reaction ever been bigger than expected?

[FXS HongKong Scalper]

Good reminder. The minutes come out at 14:00 New York time, which is 02:00 or 03:00 in Hong Kong, so for us the reaction mostly happens while we're asleep, and what we see in the Tokyo morning is the second-day version.

What we've noticed is that USDJPY often extends the minutes move in the first hour of Tokyo if US yields kept moving overnight, and fades it if yields settled back. So instead of trading the release, we check the 2-year Treasury yield change since 14:00 before taking any dollar trade in the morning.