Stocks pull back as profit-taking sets in

NEW YORK — Wall Street ended a relatively calm session with a moderate loss Tuesday as investors, while pleased with the government's plans to spend $250 billion to buy stock in private banks, decided to cash in some of their profits from the previous day's massive advance.

It was the first time in nine sessions that the Dow Jones industrial average didn't close up or down in triple digits although it did swing in a 700-point range. The Dow closed down 76 points a day after its record 936-point jump.

Big advances by many bank stocks helped offset some of the declines in the Dow and the Standard & Poor's 500 index, giving them a better showing for the day than the Nasdaq composite index, which fell more than 3 percent. But the Nasdaq, dominated by technology stocks, also lagged ahead of a profit report from Intel Corp.

Profit-taking started creeping into the market after the Dow surged more than 400 points at the opening. Wall Street is expected to see jittery trading in the weeks and perhaps months ahead because of worries about the economy; stocks also tend to ratchet up and down when they're recovering from a plunge like the one Wall Street has suffered in the past two weeks.

"We don't know if the bottom is in," said Lincoln Anderson, chief investment officer and chief economist at LPL Financial in Boston, referring to the market's advance Monday after huge losses last week. "We certainly expect heightened volatility for a fair amount of time while we sort out just exactly what's going on."

Investors had snapped up stocks Monday in anticipation of the government's plan. President Bush said Tuesday the government will use a portion of the $700 billion financial bailout passed at the start of the month to inject capital into the nation's major banks, which have been slammed by souring mortgage investments. The move follows a similar one announced Monday by European governments to invest about $2 trillion in their own troubled banks.

Investors are hoping extraordinary steps by government officials will help resuscitate stagnant credit markets.

"The tone is cautious," Anderson said. "I don't think anybody is pile driving into the market and doubling up."

The revised bailout plan differs from the original in that it aims to recapitalize banks, not just buy the troubled assets off their books at prices that could leave the banks with losses.

"This begins to penetrate the core of the problem," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at New York-based brokerage house Avalon Partners Inc.