Wall Street ends sharply lower after hawkish Bullard spooks investors – Reuters

Wall Street ends sharply lower after hawkish Bullard spooks investors – Reuters

June 18 (Reuters) - The three main Wall Street indexes all finished sharply lower on Friday, after investors were spooked by hawkish interest rate comments by Federal Reserve official James Bullard.

The blue-chip Dow and the benchmark S&P 500, which started the week at record closing levels, slumped after Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, said he was among the seven officials who saw rate increases beginning next year to contain inflation.

Inflation, and how the U.S. central bank will tackle it as the country comes out of the pandemic, had been front-and-center of investors' minds in the run-up to this week's Fed policy meeting.