The Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-cutting campaign may be at an end.

In the minutes of the Fed’s last meeting, released on Wednesday, central bankers sent the strongest signals yet that they planned to hold interest rates steady barring “a significant weakening” in the economy.

The hawkish tone cast a cloud over Wall Street, where major stock indexes entered a free fall just after the report’s release.

The Dow Jones industrials lost more than 220 points, closing at 12,601.19, and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index slid 1.6 percent as investors digested warnings from Fed officials that sky-high prices for food and fuel could cause inflation to spike in coming months.

The comments were made at a meeting in late April. But their public release capped a week of bleak economic news that underlined the bankers’ concerns.