The man who moved markets with a glance
Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman who ran the central bank from 1987 to 2006, has died at 100. For nearly two decades, he was basically the adult in the room for U.S. markets — part economist, part oracle, part guy traders stared at like it was a weather vane for interest rates.
He’s widely credited with helping steer the U.S. through a long economic expansion, which is a fancy way of saying the stock market had a very good run while he was in charge. But his legacy is also tangled up with the 2008 financial crisis, when the calm turned out to be a lot less permanent than everyone hoped.
Why investors still care
Greenspan isn’t moving stocks today, but his death is a reminder that central bankers can shape your portfolio long after they leave office. When rates are low, credit is loose, and markets are doing their best impression of a rocket ship, the Greenspan years are never far from the conversation.
And because history loves a sequel, investors still argue about the same questions he helped define:
- How much should the Fed lean against bubbles?
- Can a central bank really keep growth humming without creating bigger problems later?
- And why do markets always assume the party will never end?
Big picture
Greenspan’s death is less a market event than a bookmark in financial history. But if you’re wondering why every Fed chair gets compared to a ghost of policy decisions past, well — this is one of the ghosts.