Jeremy Grantham says the Federal Reserve has killed off the “presidential cycle” of stocks gains during the third year of a president’s term were greater than the other three combined.

“The presidential cycle owed everything to the Fed. The Federal Reserve, completely innocently, always decided to come to the aid of the party in power,” the founder of the GMO fund management group in Boston told the Financial Times.

The cycle occurred as the government enacted programs to stimulate the economy in the third year of a presidential term so that voters would feel the benefits as they went to the polls in the fourth year. The effect on share prices was felt in year three as investors anticipated an improved economy.

From 1932 to the beginning of President Barack Obama’s term in office, the first, second and fourth years of presidential terms saw stocks gain an average of 0.2 percent a month, while during the third year, monthly returns varied from 0.75 percent to 2.5 percent.

But this phenomenon was before “the age when the Fed became the dominant force in economics and finance and assumed enormous power,” he told the newspaper. “They are constantly looking for excuses to push down on interest rates and drive asset prices higher to get some wealth effect. I don’t trust them any more to play the easy presidential cycle.”