Stocks zigzag, end lower after emergency rate cut

By JOE BEL BRUNO and TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer
36 minutes ago

A stock market empowered by an emergency interest rate cut tried to find some stability Wednesday, rallying several times before another late-day drop left Wall Street down for the sixth straight day. Still, the pullback, while fed by comments from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, was milder than the massive declines of earlier in the week.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index, the market measure most closely followed by traders, fell 1.13 percent — compared to a 3.85 percent slide Monday and a 5.74 percent drop Tuesday. The Dow Jones industrials fell 189 points, a number that while sizeable was less frightening than the 875 it lost over the first two days this week.