Wall Street gets clobbered: Dow drops 3.45%, Nasdaq tumbles 5.42%

Wall Street closed deep in the red Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 3.45%, the S&P 500 sank 4.29% and the Nasdaq Composite got hit hardest, sliding 5.42%. Technology, industrials and consumer goods stocks led the retreat, and the selling was broad: on the New York Stock Exchange, 2,482 stocks fell against just 355 that gained, with 38 unchanged. The Nasdaq's tape was even uglier — 3,011 decliners versus 438 advancers and 77 flat.

The Dow's blue chips weren't spared. Nvidia took the worst hit among the index's members, shedding 8.94%, or 17.90 points, to close at $182.23. Cisco Systems slid 7.85%, or 8.13 points, ending at $95.48, and Goldman Sachs gave up 6.58%, or 61.05 points, to finish at $866.95. Only a sliver of green survived at the top: Coca-Cola edged up 0.02% to $95.82 and Verizon Communications added 0.03% to $46.19, while Procter & Gamble slipped 0.44% to $166.58.

Over on the S&P 500, the damage was concentrated in hardware names. Western Digital cratered 16.04% to $271.88, while Advanced Micro Devices lost 16.03% to settle at $410.42 and Seagate Technology dropped 15.66% to $469.81. The winners were scarce but loud: EPAM Systems jumped 18.45% to $162.71, Corpay climbed 7.78% to $451.17 — an all-time high for the stock — and Tapestry gained 6.22% to close at $133.10.

The Nasdaq Composite produced the wildest swings of the session. Lakewood-Amedex Biotherapeutics rocketed 256.74% to 68 cents, Antelope Enterprise Holdings soared 177.19% to $17.38 and Zeta Network Group rose 75.24% to $1.09. On the flip side, SANUWAVE Health collapsed 61.78% to $2.19, landing at three-year lows, Veracyte tumbled 56.15% to $23.03 for a fresh 52-week low, and eLong Power Holding slid 54.61% to $1.14.

Fear gauges lit up. The CBOE Volatility Index, which tracks implied volatility on S&P 500 options, spiked 62.34% to 26.90 — a new six-month high. Money still moved into hard assets: gold for December delivery rose 0.89%, or $36.26, to $4,109.26 a troy ounce, December crude added 2.71%, or $2.39, to $90.51 a barrel, and the January contract climbed 3.74%, or $3.54, to $98.16. In currencies, EUR/USD was essentially flat at 1.12, USD/JPY fell 0.40% to 157.80 and the dollar index ticked up 0.02% to 101.45.