Stocks fell on Thursday as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that bigger rate hikes may be coming that the central bank's meeting next month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 370 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite slid about 1.5% and 2% lower, respectively.

Here's how the market settled on Thursday:

S&P 500 Index (SPY  ): -1.48% or -65.79 points to 4,393.66

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ): -1.05% or -368.03 points to 34,792.76

Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ  ): -2.07% or -278.41 points to 13,174.65

Fed chair signals more aggressive rate hikes to come:

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signalled that the central bank is ready to take more aggressive actions to combat inflation, including a possible 50 basis point interest rate hike in May.

"It is appropriate in my view to be moving a little more quickly," to raise interest rates, Powell said while part of an International Monetary Fund panel, quoted by CNBC. "I also think these is something to be said for front-end loading any accommodation one things is appropriate. ... I would say 50 basis points will be on the table for the May meeting."

"Our goal is to use our tools to get demand and supply back in synch, so that inflation moves down and doses so without a slowdown that amounts to a recession," Powell added.

Elon Musk lays out Twitter buyout plan in new filing:

Tesla (TSLA  ) CEO Elon Musk is looking into acquiring shares of Twitter (TWTR  ) through a tender offers at a price of $54.20 per share, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

In the filing, Musk laid out his plan to obtain $46.5 billion worth of loans to finance the buyout offer he raise on April 14 for the social media giant. The funding will be provided through two debt commitment letters from Morgan Stanley (MS  ) Senior Funding, with the bank committing to offer a series of loans worth $25.5 billion and the remaining $21 billion will come from Musk himself.

Jobless claims remain at multi-decade lows:

Weekly jobless claims remained at multi-decade lows last week, as a strong labor market and an improving unemployment rate continued to be a point of strength for the U.S. economy.

Initial unemployment claims totaled 184,000 for the week ended April 16, according the Labor Department's report published Thursday, down from an upwardly revised print of 186,000 for the previous week.

Continuing jobless claims also decline, falling to 1.417 million for the week ended April 9, down from the prior week's print of 1.475 million.

Here's how benchmarks started trading after market open:

S&P 500 Index: +1.05% or +46.97 points to 4,506.42

Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.82% or +289.18 points to 35,449.97

Nasdaq Composite Index: +1.56% or +209.64 points to 13,666.46