The stock market's reaction to monetary policy and macroeconomic cyclical variation : empirical evidence from Thailand

Abstract

The monetary policy can affect the economy through the monetary transmission mechanism. Two channels that the monetary policy can affect the economy via stock prices are through a credit channel in which the change in short term policy rate will affect the companies’ cost of borrowings as well as abilities to access source of funds and a further result in companies’ return and through an asset price channel in which the change in policy rate can affect demand for stocks and further the stock return. This study analyzes the impact of unanticipated changes in monetary policy in Thailand on the monthly SET index return and firm individual stock return during business cycles. I find that response of monthly SET index return to monetary surprise is not statistically significant; in contrast the reaction of most individual firms’ returns give significant result. These findings prove that there are some firms that react strongly negative to monetary surprise. Reactions of these firms lead to significant response in firm-level data. I also find evidence supporting a credit channel of monetary policy transmission for overall stock price but I do not find significant cyclical variation in the impact of monetary policy on individual firm’s returns. Notwithstanding, the behavior of countercyclical demand for credit can help to explain the result. However, both SET index returns and unexpected changes in policy rate have a negative relationship as stated in the asset price channel of monetary policy transmission. Moreover, I find a strong negative response of stock return of firms which are classified to be financially constrained firms but a little evidence which show that stock returns of those firms are more affected to monetary shocks compare to firms with non-financially constrained firms.