Last-minute buying helped curb steep losses and gave the market its best showing of the week as investors snapped up bargains among stocks devastated by seven days of massive losses.

The Nasdaq composite index finished with a modest gain, while the Dow Jones industrials lost 128 points, a relatively mild drop after the blue chips fell 2,271 during the previous eight trading days.

Still, the Dow, which traded in a range of 1,019 points yesterday, had its worst week ever, as did the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

The Dow fell 696 points in the first 15 minutes, recovered to an advance of more than 100 before the first hour was over, then turned sharply lower again before moving in swings of hundreds of points at the day's end.

Yesterday's gainers included financial stocks, the ones most decimated amid the ongoing banking and credit crisis.

The major indexes' sharp swings throughout the day were likely exacerbated by the computer-driven "buy" and "sell" orders that kicked in when prices fell far enough to make some stocks look like attractive bets or make other investors want to exit the market.

The spurts of buying did not reflect an easing of the market's despair, and trading is likely to remain volatile when the market reopens on Monday.

(c) 2008 The Journal - Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.