Bitter ending

Stocks took a turn for the worst late Tuesday afternoon and left each of the major indexes down more than 2%. Bad news continued to haunt the financial sector as Merrill Lynch cut the ratings on Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Citigroup, all to "neutral" from "buy," citing the impact of debt-market exposure. Though stocks had been down all day, the release of the Fed minutes from the Aug. 7 meeting started the ball rolling on the late-day selloff. There is much anticipation on Wall Street for Friday's speech by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, his first since the credit-markets upheaval began. Hopefully his words will bring good news. DJIA -280.28 Nasdaq -60.61 S&P 500 -34.43