Fed officials eye rate increase

WASHINGTON – A worsening inflation picture has touched off a range of opinions from the Federal Reserve’s policymakers about just how fast they should raise interest rates beginning at their next meeting in March.

James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, on Monday reiterated his call for the Fed to take the aggressive step of raising its benchmark short-term rate by a full percentage point by July 1.

Esther George, president of the Kansas City Fed, expressed support for a more “gradual” approach.

And Mary Daly of the San Francisco Fed declined to commit herself to more than a modest rate hike next month.

Their comments follow last week’s report that inflation jumped 7.5% in January from a year ago, the fastest increase in four decades.

Stocks finish lower on Monday

Stocks on Wall Street shed early gains and closed broadly lower Monday as the U.S. moved to close its embassy in Ukraine amid heightened tensions over the thousands of Russian troops that have been massing on the border.

The S&P 500 fell 0.4% after having been down as much as 1.2% shortly after the U.S. said it is closing its embassy in Ukraine and moving all remaining staffers there to a city near the Polish border.

The move comes as diplomatic efforts continued Monday in a bid to head off what U.S. officials have warned could be an imminent Russian attack on Ukraine.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq composite ended essentially flat after having been up 1% in the early going. The three major stock indexes were coming off a weekly loss.

From wire reports