Fed Implied Market Prices and Risk Premia

We introduce FDIF, a measure of Fed communication surprise based on the text of FOMC statements. FDIF measures the difference between text-implied and actual values of key market variables. Positive FDIF of countercyclical variables (e.g., credit spreads) is associated with negative macroeconomic forecast revisions; the opposite holds for procyclical variables. Industries that hedge bad FDIF news earn low returns on FOMC announcement days, but high returns on non-FOMC days. The opposite holds for FDIF-exposed industries, and the return differences are large. Controlling for FDIF exposure, rate-based policy surprise measures are not priced in the cross-section of industry returns.