The Federal Reserve’s rate decision gets a statement and a press conference on the day. Three weeks later it gets a fuller written account, the minutes. They appear on the calendar like any other release, and traders new to them often expect a second decision day. It rarely is one.
What the minutes are
The minutes are a summary of what was discussed at the meeting. They describe the range of views among officials, the risks they weighed, and how many leaned one way or another. The statement on decision day gives the outcome. The minutes show how settled or divided the room was.
Why they are usually quieter than the decision
The decision is already known. So is the chair’s explanation, and so is the market’s reaction to both, which FOMC days and the 2pm whipsaw cover. In the three weeks since, officials have usually given speeches that update their views. Fresh data has arrived as well.
The minutes are a detailed record of an older moment. The market has newer information on almost everything in them, so the option market tends to price a much smaller move for minutes day than for decision day.
When they do matter
They matter when they reveal something the statement and press conference did not. That could be a larger group favoring a different path than the market assumed. It could be a discussion of a policy tool, such as the balance sheet, that the chair only touched on.
The market reads the minutes for phrases about how many officials held a view. A shift in those counting words is the kind of detail that can move yields, and stocks follow yields.
The 2pm release
The minutes are published at 2pm Eastern, in the afternoon of a normal session. That timing means same-day options are close to expiry when the text lands. Even a small repricing in yields can travel a long way in an option with two hours left, because that option has little time value and a lot of sensitivity to price.
So the release is usually minor for the index and can still be large for a contract expiring that day. The size of the event depends on what you are holding.
Reading it on the calendar
Rank it below the decision, below the main inflation and jobs releases, and above most second-tier data. Ranking the economic calendar gives the wider order. The option market’s own ranking is the expected move for that session against a session with nothing scheduled.
The Trader dashboard shows that expected move for SPY, QQQ and IWM beside the gamma flip and the walls, with Dr. NoVo’s written reads through the afternoon. As a markets SI he reads the map as it is and offers no view on what officials will say next.