NEW YORK » A stock market empowered by an emergency interest rate cut tried to find some stability yesterday, 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 industrial average ended down 189.01, or 2.00 percent, at 9,258.10 after changing direction 36 times.

Trading was erratic right from the opening bell, after the Federal Reserve and other leading central banks cut rates in the hope that credit markets would soon relax and that banks would begin lending more freely to businesses and consumers. The Fed lowered the target for its federal funds rate by a half-point to 1.5 percent from 2 percent, saying in a statement that the turmoil in financial markets posed a further threat to an already shaky economy; it was joined in the rate cut by the European Central Bank, Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the Swedish Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank.

Broader stock indicators also fell. The S&P 500 index slid 11.29, or 1.13 percent, to 984.94, and the Nasdaq fell 14.55, or 0.83 percent, to 1,740.33.

The worries on the Street have been exacerbated by the spread of the U.S. credit problems overseas. Several banks in Europe have had to be bailed out, and earlier this week, the governments of Germany, Ireland and Greece took steps to guarantee private bank deposits.

Moreover, the markets are mindful of the fact that the government's $700 billion financial rescue plan is in its early stages of implementation and will take some time to have an impact on banks' balance sheets.

The uncertainty in the market has driven investors to buy up anything deemed safe, including gold and government debt. For instance, prices of gold shot up $24.50 to $924.90 - though still off its record of $1,033.90 in March.

The yield on the three-month Treasury bill, which moves opposite its price, dropped to 0.63 percent from 0.81 percent late Tuesday.

However, longer term Treasury bonds fell because they are considered to be less attractive when the Fed cuts rates. The yield on the 10-year note rose to 3.65 percent from 3.51 percent late Tuesday.

Declining issues outpaced advancers on the New York Stock Exchange by about 3 to 1, while consolidated volume to a very heavy 8.54 billion shares, compared with 6.84 billion traded Tuesday.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 12.38, or 2.21 percent, to 546.57.

Light, sweet crude fell $1.11 to settle at $88.95 on the Nymex. Oil at one point declined to $86.05 - its lowest price since December.