Wall Street has suffered a huge loss, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges 358 points as investors contended with a barrage of bad news. A surge in oil prices past $140 a barrel and warnings of trouble in the key financial, automotive and high-tech industries created a gloomy mood across the market.

The day’s news included analysts’ negative comments about brokerages and General Motors Corp. It made clear to investors how much U.S. companies stand to be hurt from the fallout of the prolonged housing slump, the nearly year-old credit crisis and the soaring price of oil.

All the major indexes dropped around 3 percent. The Dow is at its lowest point in nearly two years.

Oil futures shot above $140 on Thursday after OPEC’s president said crude prices could rise well above $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production. The advance raised the likelihood that gasoline prices would also extend their advance and that prices of goods and services throughout the economy would also keep rising.

Oil’s latest milestone came as Chakib Khelil, president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said he believes oil prices could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer. Khelil also said prices will decline later in the year and aren’t likely to reach $200 a barrel.

Khelil joins a long list of forecasters who have made bold oil price predictions this year. Each new forecast such as Goldman Sachs’ recent prediction that prices could rise as high as $200 causes a jump in prices as speculative buyers are drawn into the market.

Meanwhile, the head of Libya’s national oil company said the country may cut crude production because the oil market is well supplied, according to news reports.

The previous trading record for a front-month contract was $139.89, set by the July contract on June 16.

Oil prices have more than doubled over the past year on concerns about rising demand in fast-growing economies such as China and India, and supply disruptions in the Middle East and Nigeria. The dollar’s protracted decline against the euro has also been a major factor behind oil’s rise, as many investors buy commodities such as oil as a hedge against inflation when the dollar falls. Analysts have also attributed oil’s rapid climb to speculative buying, with traders jumping into the market purely on the expectation that futures will continue to rise.

The day’s news included analysts’ negative comments about General Motors Corp., which made clear to investors how much U.S. companies stand to be hurt from the fallout of the prolonged housing slump, the nearly year-old credit crisis and the soaring price of oil.

Meanwhile, Citigroup Inc. fell sharply after an analyst placed a “sell” rating on the stock and warned investors to expect less from the brokerage sector in an uneasy economic climate.

Disappointing outlooks from technology bellwethers Oracle Corp. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. further soured investors’ moods and made the tech sector one of the steepest decliners.

Shares of American International Group Inc. hit an 11-year low on Thursday, as investors remain concerned that the world’s largest insurer could post losses for the third straight quarter.

The heap of worries that investors juggled on Thursday added up to an increasingly troubled economy.

The Dow closed at its low of the day, down 358.41 or 3.03 percent to 11,453.42 - its lowest finish since Sept. 11, 2006, while all the major indexes lost around 3 percent.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 38.82 or 2.94 percent to 1,283.15 and the technology-laden Nasdaq composite index slid 79.89 or 3.33 percent to 2,321.37.

The flight from stocks sent investors rushing for the safety of the Treasury market, where prices rose and yields tumbled.

Shares of gold-mining companies closed sharply higher on Thursday as the price of the precious metal jumped in U.S. trading.

Gold for August delivery jumped $30.30 to $912.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising as high as $918.