Wall Street dips after Fed's Bullard talks about rates

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended slightly lower on Thursday after the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said interest-rate increases should come sooner rather than later.

Six of the 10 S&P 500 sectors were in negative territory. The S&P financial index (.SPSY) slipped 0.3 percent and ranked among those leading the market's decline.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, in an interview with Fox Business Network, reiterated his belief that raising rates by the end of the first quarter of 2015 would be appropriate.

He said the U.S. jobless rate will fall below 6 percent and inflation looks likely to rise back to 2 percent later this year, putting the economy closer to normal than most realize. Bullard is a non-voting member of the Federal Open Markets Committee, the Fed's policy-making panel.

The Fed had hinted after its meeting this month about a slightly faster pace of interest-rate increases starting next year, but suggested rates in the long run would be lower than it had indicated previously.