Market falls on recession fears but Fed cut helps

New York (AP) — A surprise rate cut coming from the Federal Reserve appeared to calm investors somewhat after dramatic drops overseas.

Stocks battled back from a precipitous decline. The Dow suffered a drop of 465 points in the first few minutes of trading.

At session's send, the Dow was down 128 points to 11,971.

The S&P 500 dropped 14 and a-half points to 1,310 and the Nasdaq composite lost nearly 48 points to 2,292.

Declining issues topped advancers by a 3 to 2 margin.

Volume on the NYSE came to more than 6.2 billion shares. Nasdaq volume was 3 billion shares.

The Federal Reserve cut benchmark rates by three-quarters of a point. Many observers are betting there will be another rate cut when the central bank meets next week.