Greenspan Put

Greenspan Put

A term coined in the late 1990s describing Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's loose monetary policy. Throughout this period, Greenspan and the Fed kept interest rates rather low to encourage growth in the stock markets. Investors assumed from this policy that stocks would continue to rise and, thus, they could enter long positions and sell them at a higher price on or before a certain date, creating a put option in practice, if not in contract. While this was likely not the intent of the Federal Reserve at this time, investors used this investment strategy anyway. See also: Irrational exuberance.