US benchmark equity indexes tumbled Thursday as February job cuts in the US rose to the highest since July 2020 and shifting stances on tariffs by the Trump administration whipsawed investors.

The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.6% to 18,069.3, the S&P 500 fell 1.8% to 5,738.5, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1% to 42,579.1. Consumer discretionary and real estate paced declining sectors with only energy posting a gain.

US Treasury yields were mixed with the 10-year rate little changed at 4.291% and the two-year rate down 3.3 basis points to 3.98%.

April West Texas Intermediate crude oil dropped 0.1% to $66.28 a barrel Thursday.

In economic news, job cuts surged in February "with the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency actions, as well as canceled government contracts, fear of trade wars and bankruptcies," Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger Gray & Christmas, said in a report.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump delayed tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada covered by the North American trade agreement known as USMCA.

US initial jobless claims last week fell to 221,000 from 242,000 in the previous week, compared with expectations for a smaller decrease to 233,000 in a survey compiled by Bloomberg.

In company news, Oracle (ORCL) shares fell 6.6%. Bloomberg reported that the company and Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI plan to fill their new data center in Texas with tens of thousands of artificial intelligence chips from Nvidia (NVDA) in the coming months.

Amazon (AMZN) shares fell 3.7%. Amazon Web Services launched GameLift Streams, a new capability that allows developers to stream games on "virtually any device with a browser."

Kestra Medical Technologies (KMTS) stock jumped 28% in the debut on the Nasdaq after the company priced its initial public offering of 11.9 million shares at $17 apiece.

Plus Therapeutics (PSTV) shares quadrupled after the US Food and Drug Administration granted orphan drug designation to the company's Rhenium obisbemeda radiotherapy for treating leptomeningeal metastases in lung cancer patients.

Gold fell 0.1% to $2,923.9 per troy ounce, while silver was up 0.2% to $33.22 per troy ounce.