Stocks tumble after Fed dashes hopes for easing up on rates

Stocks tumbled on Friday after the head of the Federal Reserve dashed Wall Street's hopes that it may soon let off the brakes for the economy.

The S&P 500 dropped 3.4%, the biggest drop in two months, after Fed chair Jerome Powell said the Fed will likely need to keep interest rates high enough to slow the economy "for some time" in order to beat back the high inflation sweeping the country. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq retreated 3.9%. 

Investors initially struggled to make out the meaning of Powell's highly anticipated speech. Stocks fell at first, then erased nearly all their losses, and then turned decisively lower with all but six of the companies in the S&P 500 in the red.