There exists a considerable debate in the literature investigating how stock market upswings or downswings impact financial market regulation. The present paper contributes to this literature and investigates whether financial market regulation follows a regulative cycle: does regulation, and consequently investor protection, increase as a result of a stock market downturn [as argued by, e.g., Zingales (J Account Res 47(2): 391-425, 2009)] or-contrary to the regulative cycle hypothesis-as a result of an upswing [as claimed by Povel et al. (Rev Financ Stud 20(4): 1219-1254, 2007), or Hertzberg 2003] Following Jackson and Roe (J Financ Econ 93(2): 207-238, 2009), we use funding data on the world's most important financial market regulator, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as a proxy for the politically desired degree of regulation. We apply time series analysis. Using more than 60 years of data, we show that the SEC's funding follows a regulative cycle: A weak stock market results in increased resources for the SEC. A strong stock market results in reduced resources. Our findings underline the downside of regulation as the regulative cycle amplifies the technical procyclicality inherent in regulation.