US markets end deeply in red on ‘hawkish’ Fed minutes

06 Jan 2022 Evaluate

The US markets ended sharply lower on Wednesday as the Fed minutes seemed to have a more hawkish tone, raising concerns the central bank will be more aggressive than anticipated. According to the minutes of the December 14-15 meeting, members of the Fed are preparing to begin reducing the size of the central bank's approximately $8.8 trillion balance sheet soon after raising interest rates. While the previous balance sheet runoff commenced almost two years after policy rate liftoff, participants judge that the appropriate timing this time around would likely be closer to that of policy rate liftoff. The minutes said they noted that current conditions included a stronger economic outlook, higher inflation, and a larger balance sheet and thus could warrant a potentially faster pace of policy rate normalization.

The discussions about reducing the size of the central bank's balance sheet came as the Fed also agreed to accelerate the pace of reductions to its asset purchases, with the program currently slated to come to an end in mid-March. Meanwhile, traders have largely shrugged off a report from payroll processor ADP showing much stronger than expected private sector job growth in the month of December. ADP said private sector employment spiked by 807,000 jobs in December after jumping by a revised 505,000 jobs in November. Street had expected private sector employment to increase by 400,000 jobs compared to the addition of 534,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. On the sectoral front, Software stocks extended a recent downward move on the day, dragging the Dow Jones US Software Index down by 4.5 percent to its lowest closing level in three months.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 392.54 points or 1.07 percent to 36,407.11, Nasdaq dropped 522.54 points or 3.34 percent to 15,100.17 and S&P 500 was down by 92.96 points or 1.94 percent to 4,700.58.

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