Dow plunges 346 points as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell preaches 'patience' on inflation spike

• US stocks plunged on Thursday as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell preached "patience" on rising inflation.
• Losses in major indexes accelerated as the 10-year Treasury yield spiked back above 1.5%, indicating renewed inflation fears.
• $4.

US stocks fell sharply Thursday as investors reacted to comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Powell refrained from outlining specific steps to rein in what he described as "disorderly" markets. The $4 spiked back above 1.5% following his statements, spurring a sharp sell-off in the market's most highly valued sectors, like tech.

Some investors had been hoping that Powell would signal openness to "Operation Twist," in which the Fed would sell its shorter-term treasury holdings to fuel the purchase of longer-dated treasury notes like the 10-year, in hopes of containing the spike in interest rates. That did not materialize.

Powell also said he expects the $4 to steadily trend above 2%.

Investors also grappled with tepid labor-market data. $4 for the week that ended on Saturday, a slight increase from the prior week's revised total of 736,000. The reading barely beat economic forecasts of 750,000 claims.

Here's where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. ET close on Thursday:

• $4: 3,768.58, down 1.34%
• $4: 30,923.55, down 1.11% (346.54 points)
• $4: 12,723.47, down 2.11%

The billionaire investor Ron Baron told CNBC on Thursday that despite his long-term bullishness on $4, he had $4 in the electric-vehicle manufacturer after its position became too concentrated.

The weakness in technology stocks hasn't stopped Cathie Wood's Ark Invest from buying the dip in high-flying stocks. Ark's daily trading disclosures indicated that the $4 amid the decline.

SPACs couldn't escape the carnage in the market this week, $4 as represented by the Defiance Next Gen SPAC Derived ETF.

Going public in the US via a special-purpose acquisition company has $4, the Indian e-commerce giant owned by Walmart.

Gabe Plotkin's Melvin Capital, which was at the center of the GameStop short-squeeze earlier this year, $4.

Oil prices spiked higher, in part due to $4 $4 jumped as much as 5%, to $64.86 per barrel. $4, oil's international benchmark, rose by 4.75%, to $67.75 per barrel, at intraday highs.

$4 fell as much as 1.2%, to $1,695.20 per ounce.