NEW YORK — Wall Street finished moderately lower Wednesday, as further signs of economic deterioration dampened investors’ earlier enthusiasm about the Federal Reserve’s record interest-rate cut.
Stocks declined in the early going after a larger-than-expected loss from Morgan Stanley offered fresh evidence of the sizable obstacles the battered financial industry still faces. The company posted a loss of $2.37 billion, or $2.34 per share, for the fiscal fourth quarter. The report came a day after rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc. posted its first quarterly loss since going public in 1999.
Some selling had been expected after Tuesday’s huge rally in which the Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 4 percent and other indexes gained more than 5 percent. The moves came after the central bank lowered its federal-funds-rate target to a range of zero to 0.25 percent — the lowest levels on record.
But after briefly moving into positive territory, stocks struggled to keep big gains logged the day before as investors grappled with signs of a worsening economy, including more layoffs, and the magnitude of the Fed’s actions.
“This is a whole lot of new information for people to digest,” said David Waddell, chief executive of Waddell & Associates.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 99.80, or 1.12 percent, to 8,824.34, after falling as many as 146 points earlier in the session. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index slipped 8.76, or 0.96 percent, to 904.42, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 10.58, or 0.67 percent, to 1,579.31.
