Monetary policy and stock market dynamics across monetary regimes

This paper examines the dynamic linkages between monetary policy and the stock market during the three distinct monetary regimes of Burns, Volcker and Greenspan since the 1970s. Some major findings are the following. First, in the 1990s it appears that there was a disconnection between Federal Reserve actions (via the federal funds rate) and responses by the stock market. Second, the impact of inflation on the stock market did not surface as significant in the later parts of 1980s and the 1990s. And third, significant asymmetric effects of monetary policy on the stock markets were observed throughout each monetary regime but these were more pronounced during bear markets than bull markets. These results suggest that there was no consistent dynamic relationship between monetary policy and the stock market and that the nature of such dynamics was different in each of the three monetary regimes.