What Does Reagan's "turn the bull loose" Mean?

Former President Ronald Reagan said "We're gonna turn the bull loose" in one of his speeches back in the 1980s. 

Los Angeles Times--March 29, 1985:

'Turn the Bull Loose,' Reagan Says on Exchange Floor: President Gives Bullish Wall St. Pep Talk

By Rudy Abramson  

 
NEW YORK—President Reagan paid a campaign-style visit to Wall Street Thursday, touting his economic policies and chastising U.S. trading partners for causing "painful dislocations" in American exporting industries by failing to follow the example of his Administration.

"Despite the passing acknowledgement of record-breaking U.S. trade deficits, Reagan delivered an uncompromisingly bullish pep talk to floor traders at the New York Stock Exchange, saying that his economic policies are aimed at "driving the bears back into permanent hibernation" and promising that "we're going to turn the bull loose.""

 

In Wall Street (meaning the Stock Exchange), when average stock prices are rising, it's called a "bull market," and when average stock prices are falling, it's called a "bear market."

 

Nobody is sure where these terms came from, but they are in very popular use.

So Reagan was boasting that his administration's financial policies would cause a boom in the stock market.

The truth was that the economy suffered in many ways during Reagan's two terms in office (one big way was the negative balance of trade, mentioned in the L.A. Times article quoted above), but stock prices did go up on the whole during that era, so perhaps Reagan made good on that promise in a narrow way (looking only at stocks, not other sectors of the economy).