The great importance of monetary policy has been demonstrated lately by the stock market. Brokers normally count on a year-end rally, and they have been disappointed only six times in the past 41 years. Last week was one of those times. Mostly because of the Federal Reserve Board's recent moves to make money scarcer and costlier to borrow, the latest slump in stock prices stretched out to a full month.
On the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow-Jones industrial average, which reached a 1968 peak of 985.21 on Dec. 3, fell to 943.75 at year's end....
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