Stocks bounce around their records

Stocks bounced around their records Wednesday after the Federal Reserve made moves to boost the job market but also warned that more help isn’t guaranteed.

- By Stan CHOE

The Standard & Poor's 500 finished virtually flat and edged down by less than 0.1%. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 73 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.5%. All three indexes were coming off an all-time high.

Stocks had been on track for modest gains in the afternoon after the Fed cut its main interest rate for the second time this year in hopes of helping the slowing job market. But the market snapped lower after Chair Jerome H. Powell later warned that it “is not a foregone conclusion” that the Fed will cut rates again in December at its next meeting, “far from it.”

“That needs to be taken off the board,” Powell said.