U.S. Stocks Gains Marred by Volatility

After a slightly positive start, the major indices are bobbing in and out of red as investors absorb a new effort by the Fed to ease nonfinancial firms' credit burdens.

Author:: Mike Taylor
Publish date:: Oct 7, 2008 10:18 AM EDT

Updated from 9:45 a.m. EDT

Stocks in New York quickly retreated from early gains won Tuesday on new the

Federal Reserve

will buy short-term debt from U.S. companies to provide relief from the credit crisis.

The Fed announced creation of a new lending facility to buy

short-term commercial paper

from businesses. The central bank also said it expects the new lending program to remove the stoppage in the credit markets.

The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

was down 43 points to 9,912, while the

S&P 500

was essentially flat at 1056. The

Nasdaq

was losing 14.7 points to 1848.

On Monday, the major indices sold off frantically only to recover from much of their losses as the credit crisis manifested itself outside the U.S. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

, down as much as 800 points during the session, ended with a loss of 369 points, or 3.6%. Nasdaq and the S&P 500 finished down 3.9% and 4.3%, respectively.

After Monday's close,

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

announced it would cut its dividend and raise $10 billion in fresh capital as it reported quarterly earnings ahead of schedule.

Meanwhile,

Citigroup

and

Wells Fargo

(WFC) - Get Report

agreed to take a two-day breather from their legal fight over who would get to acquire

Wachovia

(WB) - Get Report

In the technology sector,

chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices

(AMD) - Get Report

announced a plan to spin off its manufacturing operations.

Automaker

Adam Opel

, a segment of

General Motors

(GM) - Get Report

, said it would cease production at its Eisenach, Germany plant, according to the

As for economic data, traders will get a look at minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's Sept. 16 meeting, when it elected to leave its key interest rate unchanged at 2%. Later in the afternoon, the Fed's look at U.S. consumer credit is due for release.

In commodities, crude oil was gaining $4.02 to $91.83 a barrel. Gold was gaining $23.20 to $889.40 an ounce.

Longer-dated U.S. Treasury securities were declining in price. The 10-year was down 28/32 to yield 3.56%, and the 30-year was down 1-12/32 to yield 4.05%.

Abroad, markets were higher. The FTSE in London and the Dax in Frankfurt were logging gains.

Asian exchanges

finished mixed following a rate cut from Australia's central bank.