The response of stock market volatility to futures-based measures of monetary policy shocks

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the dynamic response of stock market volatility to changes in monetary policy. Using a vector autoregressive model, our findings reveal a significant response of stock returns and volatility to monetary policy shocks. While the increase in the volatility risk premium, futures-trading volume and leverage appear to contribute to a short-term increase in volatility, the longer-term dynamics of volatility are dominated by monetary policy’s effect on fundamentals. The estimation results from a bivariate VAR-GARCH model suggest that the Fed does not respond to the stock market at a high frequency but that market participants’ uncertainty regarding the monetary stance affects stock market volatility.