NEW YORK — Economic fallout from last week's terrorist attacks sent stocks diving for the second time in three days Wednesday. Only a late burst of buying saved the Dow Jones industrials from their worst three-day point loss ever.

        The Dow, down 423 points in midafternoon, recovered to a loss of 144 following news reports that the Pentagon had ordered fighter jets and bombers to begin moving to the Persian Gulf area, the first concrete sign of preparations to retaliate for last week's terrorist attacks.

        “I think that's what the market needed to see; they wanted to get rid of uncertainty, and this helped,” said Charles White, portfolio manager at Avatar Associates.

        Despite the comeback, the market remained vulnerable after thousands of job cuts at Boeing and other companies after the attacks heightened fears about the already fragile economy.

        On the heels of Boeing's announcement Tuesday of 30,000 layoffs, American and United added to the job-cuts fear by announcing — after Wednesday's markets closed — that they would lay off 20,000 workers each.

        At its low, the Dow had accumulated a three-day loss of more than 1,100 points. Its worst three-day loss was 984 points in August 1998.

        The Dow closed down 144.27, or 1.6 percent, at 8759.13. So far this week, the Dow is down 746.81, or 8.8 percent.

        Broader indexes also fell. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 27.28 at 1527.80, a 1.8 percent loss, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index was off 16.64, or 1.6 percent, at 1016.10.

        Tech stocks took a hit Wednesday, particularly in the semiconductor category. Intel fell $1.19 to $22.28, a 5 percent drop.

        Wall Street had been pushing the market lower all year on worries about when business will improve and, before last week's attack, many analysts had predicted that the worst of the selling might be over soon.

        But the assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon negated those forecasts and raised the possibility the situation may be deteriorating.

        Despite the Pentagon's order Wednesday of fighters and bombers to the Persian Gulf region, “It's very murky as to what our reaction is going to be politically, and meanwhile you're continuing to get major layoff announcements,” said Bill Barker, investment consultant at Dain Rauscher. “The economic uncertainty has heightened considerably over the near term, and there is simply no reason to buy.”

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