Fed Members’ Monetary Tones and Yields

By Musa Amadeus, Rajeev Bhargava, Michael Guidi, Marvin Loh, Gideon Ozik, and Ronnie Sadka

Read between the lines: The measurement of Fed members’ monetary tones facilitates an understanding of the dynamics of the individual monetary policy stances underlying aggregated, consensus (top-down) Fed tones.

Amadeus et al. (2022) observe that aggregated, consensus (top-down) central bank monetary tones in media contain predictive information pertaining to future weekly yield fluctuations. This article elucidates the more granular, stratified (bottom-up) dynamics underlying these relations. The predictive relationships between Fed consensus tones and yields are primarily driven by an underreaction of yields to the Fed Board of Governors’ tones between monetary policy meetings. Over short-term horizons, Treasury yields appear to price voting FOMC members’ (Board of Governors’ and Regional Bank Presidents’) tones while relatively longer-term horizon yields appear to reflect both voting and non-voting tones. Fed Regional Bank Presidents’ monetary tones are more responsive to regional inflation fluctuations than to unemployment. The analysis of the heterogeneous impacts of Fed members’ tones over distinct yield horizons provides insights pertaining to the pricing of voting and non-voting Fed members’ tones in Treasury markets.