How often is the Beige Book published?

Eight times a year, about two weeks before each scheduled FOMC meeting, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

Does the FOMC use the Beige Book to decide rates?

It is one of the inputs Committee members see, alongside official data and staff forecasts. It provides context from district contacts; it is not a policy document.

The Fed's Beige Book: anecdotal reports from the twelve districts

The Beige Book is the Federal Reserve's summary of commentary on current economic conditions gathered by the twelve Reserve Banks from businesses and contacts in their districts. It is published eight times a year, two weeks before each FOMC meeting, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. It rarely moves futures much, but it can colour the reading of the data ahead of a meeting.

Senzoukria · Economic events · Updated September 2026

At a glance

Published by: Federal Reserve, compiled from the twelve Reserve Banks
Frequency: Eight times a year, two weeks before each FOMC meeting
Usual time: 2:00 p.m. ET (1:00 p.m. Chicago)
Content: National summary plus a report per district: activity, employment, wages, prices
Nature: Qualitative; no numbers to compare with a consensus

What the Beige Book contains

Each Reserve Bank collects information from business contacts, economists and other sources in its district, and summarizes it by theme: overall activity, consumer spending, manufacturing, labor markets, wages and prices. A national summary opens the report.

The report is qualitative. It describes activity as having grown slightly, held steady or declined modestly, for example, rather than giving figures. That is its value, since it can pick up turning points before official statistics, and its limit: it is anecdotal, and the words are chosen by each district.

Why the market reaction is usually small

There is no consensus forecast, so there is no surprise to measure in the usual sense.
The report reflects conditions gathered over the weeks before publication and does not reveal policy intentions.
It can matter more when official data are delayed or contradictory, or when the wording on prices or employment changes clearly from one edition to the next.
Some participants run text analysis on the wording, so a quick reaction can occur at 2:00 p.m. even when the content is ambiguous.

Order flow on a Beige Book afternoon

Because the report is rarely decisive, the pre-release step-back in the book is usually small or absent. A release bar with volume in line with its neighbours is the common outcome. When the wording does move futures, the move tends to be small and to fade unless it lines up with the data the market is already debating.

The Beige Book afternoon is a useful baseline: it shows what a scheduled release with little information looks like in the footprint and on the heatmap, which helps calibrate what counts as a real reaction on heavier days. Relative Volume on the 1:00 p.m. CT bar gives a quick measure of whether anything happened.

In Senzoukria

The Beige Book may appear in the News calendar under US at a medium or low rating; enable those levels in the Impact filter to show it. On the chart, markers are drawn only for events of medium impact or higher within about 18 hours of now, so a low-rated row will not produce a vertical line.

The “What moves my session” panel lists releases in the next twelve hours at medium impact or above for the instrument preset chosen in the wire, which helps judge whether the Beige Book is the only event of the afternoon or shares it with something heavier, such as a Treasury auction result at 1:00 p.m. ET.

In the same section

Sources

Federal Reserve: Beige Book (2026-09-25)

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Frequently asked questions

How often is the Beige Book published?: Eight times a year, about two weeks before each scheduled FOMC meeting, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.
Does the FOMC use the Beige Book to decide rates?: It is one of the inputs Committee members see, alongside official data and staff forecasts. It provides context from district contacts; it is not a policy document.

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