A concerted rate-cutting by the central banks of the world's economic heavyweights appeared to be meet Wednesday with a positive, if tentative, response on European exchanges and early gains on Wall Street. But markets and investors were still obviously on a rollercoaster ride much of the time.

The central banks of the United States, Britain, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden and China, as well as the eurozone's European Central Bank, delivered a 50 basis points cut in their lead rates in a bid to ease monetary conditions and shore up market liquidity.

The move came too late to affect markets in Asia, which saw further massive losses in the wake of Wall Street's drop of five percent, with for example, Japan's leading Nikkei plunging 952.58 points, or 9.38 percent, to end at 9,203.32.

But a half hour into the new Wall Street session on Wednesday, the Dow Jones index had gained almost 105 points, or 1.1 percent, to reach 9,552 points.

In Europe, stocks began plunging in the wake of Wall Street's losses Tuesday and the early losses in Asia, but then the rate cut announcement triggered encouraging rebounds on a number of exchanges.

In London, the FTSE 100 Index started out with a 7 percent plunge, only then to rebound after the rate cut announcement. By lunchtime, the index was up almost 39 points to 4,644 points.

In Paris, the benchmark CAC 40 was on a similar roller-coaster ride. Trading was briefly suspended in the morning when a rush of sell orders sent the index plunging more than 8 percent. But after the rate cut announcement, shares rebounded strongly - only for a new pessimism to set in. At mid-afternoon, the CAC 40 was down 4.7 percent to 3,557.33 points.

In Frankfurt, German stocks rallied slightly Wednesday after the interest rate cuts. As of mid-afternoon, the 30-share DAX was running at 5,256 points, down 1.3 percent from Tuesday's close - but more than 300 points higher after the DAX had initially plunged 8.6 percent to around 4,900 points.

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