Perhaps robust money growth late in the year partly reflected a reaction to this turmoil by the public, who began scrambling for safer and more liquid financial assets. Monetary expansion has moderated so far this year, evidently in lagged response to the calming of financial markets in the autumn.
Layered on top of these influences, though, the public also may have been reapportioning their savings flows into money balances because the huge run-up in stock prices in recent years has resulted in an uncomfortable portion of their net worth in equity. For the coming year, the broad monetary aggregates could again run high relative to these ranges.