NEW YORK — Cautious trading surfaced on Wall Street Wednesday as investors bid tech stocks modestly higher but sold blue chips following a government report saying the nation's economy shrank at a smaller-than-expected rate in the third quarter.

Analysts said investors were torn between a desire to bargain hunt following big sell-offs Monday and Tuesday and an inclination to sell based on the uncertain economy.

The Dow ended a choppy session down 46.84, or 0.6 percent, at 9,075.14, having risen as much as 100 earlier. The Dow's drop came on the heels of a 422-point loss incurred Monday and Tuesday.

The broader market was stronger but still ended the day mixed as most buying was done in the tech sector.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 22.79, or 1.4 percent, to 1,690.20, having lost 101 points Monday and Tuesday. But the Standard & Poor's 500 index was essentially unchanged, off 0.01 at 1,059.78. The S&P lost 44 points Monday and Tuesday.

Analysts said the slippage this week was expected given how the market quickly recovered the steep losses in the first week of trading following the Sept. 11 attacks.

At the end of last week, the Dow had recovered all but 60 points of the 1,369 it lost in the week that trading resumed. The Nasdaq and S&P were trading above their pre-attack levels. As of Wednesday, the Nasdaq was 5 points from where it stood Sept. 10; the S&P, down 33.

``We are in a correction phase,'' said Al Mirman, market strategist for V Finance in Sarasota, Fla. ``We had a 100 percent retracement of the decline, which is very unusual. That says we are in for a stronger market, but it also says a correction is due first.''

Wednesday's buying activity was stronger and more widespread earlier in the session, after the government said the economy shrank at a 0.4 percent rate from July through September. Analysts, worried about the economy's performance in the weeks following the attacks, had been expecting a 1.0 percent decline.

Nonetheless, the drop in gross domestic product, the nation's total output of goods and services, was the biggest since 1991 when the country was deep in the last recession, the Commerce Department reported.

While trading of stocks was fairly lackluster, investors rushed to snatch up 30-year bonds after the government announced Wednesday it was eliminating sales of new bonds and will rely on securities with a shorter maturity to finance the national debt. Investors pushed the prices of the bonds up $5.25, or $52.50 per $1,000 in face value, and pushed down their yield to 4.87 percent from 5.20 percent.