Stocks spent most of the day wallowing in red ink, as investors once again circled out of tech -- thanks to the rising 10-year Treasury yield --.and anxiously eyed inflation pressures. Among the tech laggards, FAANG name Facebook (FB) was walloped by news that a whistleblower has accused the company of a "betrayal of democracy", after revealing her identity on Sunday. Separately, the platform, along with FB-owned Instagram and WhatsApp, is suffering its worst outage since 2008. As a result, the Dow lost 323 points, while the Nasdaq logged a triple-digit loss. The broader-market S&P 500 notched a sizable daily drop as well.

The Dow Jones Average (DJI - 34,002.92) lost 323.5 points or 0.9%. Merck (MRK) paced the gainers with a 2.1% pop, while Visa (V) fell to the bottom, shedding 2.5%.

The S&P 500 Index (SPX - 4,300.46) lost 56.6 points or 1.3%, for the day, and the Nasdaq Composite (IXIC - 14,255.49) shed 311.2 points, or 2.1% for the day.

Lastly, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX - 22.96) added 1.8 points or 8.6%.

OIL FUTURES HIT SEVEN-YEAR HIGHS

Oil prices continued to rise today, hitting their highest level since 2014 in the process. Strengthening  black gold was news that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies (OPEC+) agreed to leave their current production deal unchanged, which will raise production output by 400,000 barrels per day next month -- an amount many believe will not be sufficient. In response, November-dated crude rose $1.74, or 2.3%, to settle at $77.62 a barrel. 

Gold prices also strung together another win, their third-straight, as the U.S. dollar softened and investors monitored rising tensions between China and Taiwan, leading many to rotate back into the safe-haven commodity. December-dated gold rose $9.20, or 0.5%, to settle at $1,767.60 an ounce for the day.