NEW YORK, New York - Fears of a global recession coupled with higher inflation and even more aggressive interest rate hikes kept stock buyers at bay on Thursday.

"The Fed's paved the way for much of the world to continue with aggressive rate hikes, and that's going to lead to a global recession, and how severe it is will be determined on how long it takes inflation to come down," Ed Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda told CNBC Thursday.

A late sell-off pushed all major indices into the red. The Dow Jones towards the end at least looked like finishing with a gain, but the notion evaporates as sellers hit technology stocks.

The Nasdaq Composite shed 153.39 points or 1.37 percent to close Thursday at 11,066.81.

The Standard and Poor's 500 dropped 31.94 points or 0.84 percent to 3,757.99.

The Dow Jones industrials declined 107.10 points or 0.35 percent to 30,076.68.

The U.S. dollar underwent a modest correction in New York Thursday after forging ahead in the Asian session.

The euro backed off to 0.9841 by the New York close Thursday. The British pound edged up to 1.1262. The Japanese yen was also in demand, rising sharply to 142.30.

The Canadian dollar strengthened to 1.3480. The Australian dollar recovered more than half a cent to 0.6649. The New Zealand dollar rose to 0.5850.

The Swiss franc, going against the trend, slid to 0.9765.

On overseas equity markets, the German Dax weakened by 1.87 percent. The CAC 40 in Paris lost 1.08 percent. In London, the FTSE 100 gave up 1.08 percent.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 dropped 152.29 points or 0.56 percent to 27,160.54.

In South Korea, the Kospi Composite slid 15.73 points or 0.67 percent to 2,331.48.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng dived 296.67 points or 1.61 percent to 18,147.95.

China's Shanghai Composite closed down 8.27 points or 0.27 percent at 3,108.91.

New Zealand's S&P/NZX 50 went against the trend, adding 19.37 points or 0.17 percent to 11,518.32.

The Australian stock market was closed for a public holiday.