Wall Street ended a mildly erratic day slightly lower Thursday after anxiety about widening credit problems offset investor optimism about a $ 2 billion capital infusion into troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp.

The market gave up a moderate early gain, but fluctuations were to be expected given the amount of uncertainty about the credit markets, and the fact that stocks posted big gains Wednesday, pushing the Dow Jones industrials up 145 points.

Bank of America Corp. announced late Wednesday it will invest the money into the nation's largest mortgage lender to help it better weather problems with defaulting subprime loans. The investment was seen as a way to not only prop up Countrywide, but also prevent any further losses at the mortgage lender from hurting the underlying economy. Countrywide's CEO Angelo Mozilo expressed his optimism about the deal in an interview on CNBC on Thursday, but when asked if the housing slump could cause a recession, he agreed.

The market showed little response Thursday to policymakers' infusion of another $ 17.25 billion into the banking system to help boost liquidity, adding to the $ 41.25 billion the central bank has injected since the beginning of last week.

Broader indexes fell modestly.

The Dow fell 0.25, or less than 0.01%, to 13,235.88

The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1.57, or 0.11%, closing at 1,462.50.

Nasdaq composite index fell 11.10, or 0.43%, to 2,541.70.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 10.31, or 1.29 %, to 788.25.

Though the major stock indexes finished a bit lower, advancing issues narrowly outnumbered decliners on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to a light 3.08 billion shares, down from 3.29 billion Wednesday.

Government securities were mixed. The 10-year Treasury note's yield fell to 4.63 percent from 4.65% late Wednesday, but the 3-month Treasury bill's yield surged to 3.93% from 3.66 %

Crude oil rose 57 cents to $ 69.83 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold dipped slightly. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies.

The Fed's cut last Friday of the discount rate, the interest it charges banks to borrow, did little to alleviate concern about distressed subprime mortgages and a difficult credit environment, although it did remove some of the volatility that has torn the stock market over the past month. Investors are hoping the Fed will take the more dramatic step of lowering its benchmark federal funds rate.

Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.01 %, Germany's DAX index rose 0.15 %, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.09 %. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei stock average closed up 2.61%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 2.77 %



Indian ADR's witnessed some selling pressure, ICICI Bank ,HDFC Bank and MTNL were the major losers


Indian ADR's saw some selling pressure, ICICI Bank ,HDFC Bank and MTNL were the major losers.

In the technology pack, Patni Computers was down 0.87% at 21.56, Infosys Technologies was up by 0.04% at 45.99, Satyam Computers was up 0.63% at 24.10, Wipro was down 1.03% at 13.51.

In the non-tech pack, ICICI Bank was down 2.27 % at 41.42, HDFC Bank was down 3.82 % at 81.06, MTNL was down 2.12 % at 6.46, VSNL was down 1.5% at 18.42, Dr Reddy's Lab was up 0.77% at 15.72, Sterlite Industries was down 0.27% at 14.90 and Tata Motors also remained down 1.33 % at 15.56.