Stocks resume sell-off; Dow finishes down 519 points

NEW YORK (AP) — Back to reality for the stock market — and back down.

Wall Street focused today on the bleak landscape ahead for the economy and sold off, wiping out the big gains from a day earlier and then some. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 519 points.

The selling was intensified by worries about debt problems in Europe.

On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve said it planned to keep interest rates ultra-low for two more years. After some initial confusion, the stock market staged a huge comeback and had one of its best days.

But the interest-rate news proved to be a distraction. The Fed made the pledge because it sees almost no chance that the economy will improve substantially by 2013, and when investors focused on that, they dumped stocks again.

"Now it gets back to the fundamentals," said Mark Lamkin, founder of Lamkin Wealth Management, which manages $215 million.