Dow drops 300 points as U.S. stocks open down after Bullard’s remarks

U.S. stocks opened lower Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling around 300 points, as investors weighed remarks from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard and a report showing that weekly jobless claims fell slightly. The Dow
DJIA,
-0.19%
was down 0.9% soon after the opening bell, while the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.56%
fell 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-0.58%
dropped 1.6%, according to FactSet data, at last check. The Department of Labor reported Thursday that initial unemployment claims dipped to 222,000 in the week ending November 12. That’s below the 225,000 of new claims forecast by economists polled by the Wall Street Journal. Bullard said in a speech Thursday that the Fed’s benchmark interest rate will need to be increased further to bring down inflation, with a chart accompanying his remarks suggesting that the rate could rise to somewhere around a 5%-7% range.