Impact of Interest Rates on Stock Prices

Impact of Interest Rates on Stock Prices

Warren Buffett highlighted the impact of interest rates on the Dow in a speech he gave on the stock market in July 1999. To demonstrate the correlation between interest rates and stock prices, with the exception of the inflation figures, he provided the data below which depicts two 17-year periods, between 1964 and 1981, and 1981 to 1998.

31st December
Gain in GNP over each 17 year period (%)
1964 – 1981…..373
1981 – 1998…..177
DJIA
1964—874
1981-- 875
1998--9181
Interest on long term government bonds (%)
1964-- 4.20
1981-- 13.65
1998-- 5.09
Increase in consumer price index over each 17 year period (%)
1964 – 1981…..201
1981 – 1998……74

Note:

The inflationary effect on asset values together with retained profits and new capital issues would have significantly increased the book values of the companies comprising the Dow during the first period 1964 – 1981. Yet, in spite of the huge increase in GNP, the 1964 index figure was basically the same 17 years later. Prices had been subdued by a more than threefold increase in interest rates.

In the second 17-year period from 1981 to 1998, in spite of GNP growth and inflation being less than 50 percent of the first period, the Dow increased by 949 percent. The driving factor was declining interest rates that diverted money out of interest-bearing securities into equities.

Interest rates increase at times of high inflation partly to offset the diminishing value of money and the government’s desire to curb demand in what is seen to be, as measured by GNP, a fast-growing economy. Conversely, when inflation subsided in the second 17-year period, interest rates declined.