Wall Street Opens Lower as Fed Officials Keep Mood Cautious; Dow Down 240 Pts By Investing.com

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened lower again on Tuesday as hawkish comments from Federal Reserve officials, together with increasing signs of a wave of Covid-related absenteeism across the U.S. economy, kept a firm lid on risk appetite. 

By 9:45 AM ET (1445 GMT), the was down 243 points, or 0.7% at 35,826 points. The was down 0.6% and the was down 0.5%.

Earlier gains in the premarket session quickly reversed after Kansas City Fed President Esther George, a noted hawk on the policymaking committee, said that she was comfortable with the idea of the Fed selling its bond holdings back into the market faster than it did after the last quantitative easing program ended. 

“My own preference would be to opt for running down the balance sheet earlier rather than later as we plot a path for removing monetary accommodation,” George said in prepared remarks to a virtual event to Central Exchange, a women’s organization.

George’s comments were a setback to hopes that the Fed may go easy on removing stimulus due to a likely soft patch for growth in the first couple of months caused by the Omicron-variant of Covid-19. The new dominant variant has caused record numbers of infections across the U.S., and resultant absences from work.