An additional complexity arises from the fact that, although easier monetary policy allows consumers to enjoy a capital gain in their stock portfolios today, it also "takes back" some of that gain, so to speak, by affording shareholders a lower rate of return on their holdings, on average, in subsequent periods.
Research by Sydney Ludvigson and Martin Lettau of New York University and Charles Steindel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Ludvigson, Steindel, and Lettau, 2002; Lettau and Ludvigson, 2001) suggests that, because the gain in share prices induced by a monetary easing is partly transitory, consumers will not increase their spending in response to stock price changes induced by monetary policy as much as they will in response to stock price changes induced by other factors.