DENVER (KDVR) — Stocks do not always immediately tumble when the Federal Reserve raises rates, but the Fed does not always raise them this high, either.

The stock market slid Thursday, following the news that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise target interest rates. The benchmark S&P 500 fell 3.6%, marking its biggest loss in nearly two years, a day after it posted its biggest gain since May 2020. The Nasdaq slumped 5%, its worst drop since June 2020. The losses by the Dow and the other indexes offset the gains from a day earlier.

The Fed increased rates by half a point – the highest it has bumped rates since May 2000.

In the short term, interest rate hikes have mixed effects.

During the days the Fed raised rates from 2015 to 2018, stock indexes went up half the time and down the other half. The monthly return following rate raises shows the same pattern: sometimes indexes go up, sometimes they go down.

Long-term trends say stock indexes generally keep going up after rate raises, according to Dow Jones market data.

Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq each gained value through all but one of five periods of time during which the Fed consistently increased rates.

The only exception was during a rate raise period from 1999 through 2001, when each index dropped. This was the only period analyzed by Dow during which there was a half-point rate change.

In May 2000, that half-point interest rate hike came before a major stock tumble. The Nasdaq index of 2000 wobbled upward in May, then fell almost 50% by the end of the year.