This paper documents the impact of U.S. monetary policy announcement surprises on foreign equity indexes, short-and long-term interest rates, and exchange rates in 49 countries. We use two proxies for monetary policy surprises: the surprise change to the current target federal funds rate (target surprise) and the revision to the path of future monetary policy (path surprise). We find that different asset classes respond to different components of the monetary policy surprises. Global equity indexes respond mainly to the target surprise; exchange rates and long-term interest rates respond mainly to the path surprise; and short-term interest rates respond to both surprises. On average, a hypothetical surprise 25-basis-point cut in the federal funds target rate is associated with about a 1 percent increase in foreign equity indexes and a 5 basis point decline in foreign short-term interest rates. A surprise 25-basis-point downward revision in the path of future policy is associated with about a ½ percent decline in the exchange value of the dollar against foreign currencies and 5 and 8 basis points declines in short-and long-term interest rates, respectively. We also find that asset prices' responses to FOMC announcements vary greatly across countries, and that these cross-country variations in the response are related to a country's exchange rate regime. Equity indexes and interest rates in countries with a less flexible exchange rate regime respond more to U.S. monetary policy surprises. In addition, the crosscountry variation in the equity market response is strongly related to the percentage of each country's equity market capitalization owned by U.S. investors (a financial linkage), and the cross-country variation in short-term interest rates' responses is strongly related to the share of each country's trade that is with the United States (a real linkage).Keywords: monetary policy announcements, equity markets, interest rates, exchange rates, exchange rate regime JEL Classification: E44, E52, G14, G15 * Research assistant and economist, respectively, in the Division of International Finance of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. We thank Refet Gürkaynak for providing monetary policy announcement surprises data. We thank Sigga Benediktsdottir, Mark Carey, Joe Gagnon, John Rogers, Chiara Scotti, and Clara Vega and seminar participants in the FRB Finance Forum for helpful comments and suggestions and Bruce Gilsen for frequent help with SAS. Of course, we take responsibility for any and all errors. For questions and comments, please contact

This paper documents the impact of U.S. monetary policy announcement surprises on equity indexes in sixteen countries, covering both developed and emerging economies. Using high-frequency intraday data, I find a large and significant response of Asian, European, and Latin American equity indexes to U.S. monetary policy announcement surprises at short time horizons. In this paper, I use two proxies for monetary policy surprises: a surprise change to the current target federal funds rate, and a revision to the path of future monetary policy (Gürkaynak, Sack, and Swanson (2004)). Consistent with results for the U.S. equity market, this paper finds that in most cases foreign equity indexes react only to a surprise change in the current target rate. On average, a hypothetical unanticipated 25-basis-point cut in the federal funds target rate is associated with a ½ to 2½ percent increase in foreign equity indexes. The variation of the response across countries appears to be more related to the degree of financial integration with the United States than it is to trade linkages with the United States or the degree of exchange rate flexibility.

This paper provides evidence of transmission of information from the U.S. and Japan to Korean and Thai equity markets during the period from 1995 through 2000. Information is defined as important macroeconomic announcements in the U.S., Japan, Korea, and Thailand. Using high-frequency intraday data, I focus the study on return volatility and trading volume because the implications of new information are much clearer than for returns. I find a large and significant association between emerging-economy equity volatility and trading volume and developed-economy macroeconomic announcements at short-time horizons. This is the first strong evidence of this sort of international information transmission. Previous studies' findings of at most weak evidence may be due to their use of lower frequency data and their focus on developed-economy financial market innovations as the measure of information.

Counter to extant stylized facts, using newly available data on country allocations in US investors' foreign equity portfolios we find that (i) US investors do not exhibit returns-chasing behavior, but, consistent with partial portfolio rebalancing, tend to sell past winners; and (ii) US investors increase portfolio weights on a country's equity market just prior to its strong performance, behavior inconsistent with an informational disadvantage. Over the past two decades, US investors' foreign equity portfolios outperformed a value-weighted foreign benchmark by 160 basis points per year. (JEL: C58, G11, G15)

This paper documents the impact of U.S. monetary policy announcement surprises on equity indexes in sixteen countries, covering both developed and emerging economies. Using high-frequency intraday data, I find a large and significant response of Asian, European, and Latin American equity indexes to U.S. monetary policy announcement surprises at short time horizons. In this paper, I use two proxies for monetary policy surprises: a surprise change to the current target federal funds rate, and a revision to the path of future monetary policy (Gürkaynak, Sack, and Swanson (2004)). Consistent with results for the U.S. equity market, this paper finds that in most cases foreign equity indexes react only to a surprise change in the current target rate. On average, a hypothetical unanticipated 25-basis-point cut in the federal funds target rate is associated with a ½ to 2½ percent increase in foreign equity indexes. The variation of the response across countries appears to be more related to the degree of financial integration with the United States than it is to trade linkages with the United States or the degree of exchange rate flexibility.