Beige Book and FOMC minutes: do you trade them, or are they too slow to matter?

Two Fed publications fall in the next ten days. The minutes of the 15–16 September meeting come out on 7 October at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time, three weeks after the decision. The Beige Book, a summary of conditions across the Fed's districts, follows on 14 October at 2:00 p.m., the same day as September's consumer prices.

Both describe the past. The minutes record a meeting at which the committee raised rates to 3.75%–4.00% in a 12–0 vote (report), before payrolls rose only 29,000 (report) and before the 10-year yield passed 5% (report). The Beige Book summarises anecdotes from business contacts rather than hard figures. Some traders skip them entirely; others say the language can move yields when it shows more or less appetite for tightening than the decision implied.

We would like to hear from members who have an opinion:

• Do you trade minutes or the Beige Book, or do you treat them as background reading?
• If you trade them, what do you look for: the vote count, a changed phrase, the mention of a particular risk?
• Have you been caught out by a reaction that went the other way from what the text seemed to say?
• With data landing on the same afternoon, such as CPI and the Beige Book on 14 October, how do you separate the signals?

How to read an economic calendar explains how to rank events by impact.

Please share your own approach and reasoning, not calls for others to copy. Posts that promise a direction or sell signals will be removed.