Wall Street mood: "It's hell, what do you think?"

NEW YORK — As Wall Street yo-yoed through another day of breathless ups and downs, a pall of dejection and despair hung over the august New York Stock Exchange, the epicenter of the country's economic malaise.

Harried traders frantically tried to recover from a week of spiraling losses, emerging grim-faced to puff on cigarettes outside the exchange's imposing marble facade. The sense of powerlessness was palpable.

"It's hell, what do you think?" snapped one blue-jacketed employee at midday when queried about the mood.

Inside, traders banged on keyboards next to trays of half-eaten French fries. Television crews clattered across the wooden floor, drawn by the sounds of yelling or clapping.

Jeffrey Frankel, a trader at Stuart Frankel & Co. for 20 years, said he was keeping his confidence up, even though the Dow was down nearly 500 points by midafternoon.

"I'm not going to give up hope," he said, "There's still time."

All day, eyes were on the clock. How would the day end? Was there good news to be found?

It was hard to shake the gloom in the room.

"It's our eighth session of being down," Frankel said. "It's a sad time, as tough a time as I've ever seen. ... Everyone is rushing for the gates."

Historically, financial shifts hit the New York Stock Exchange about six months before the rest of the country, he said, but this time the impact will be more immediate.

"Everyone borrows money," he noted. "Farmers in Iowa need to borrow. It's not just people on Wall Street. This is a crisis for everyone."

That's what worried the crowd of tourists and suit-clad passers-by gathered outside.

"We've been trying to send positive vibes into the building, but I don't know if it's working," said tourist Kent Scarborough, 28, a respiratory therapist from Denver, as he and his wife sat on a bench, watching traders slump dejectedly against metal barricades outside the building.

Some couldn't bear to look.

Jim Weitner, 33, slogged through the throngs of people, trying to avoid reading the numbers on the electronic ticker outside the exchange.

"I'm over it," said Weitner, a financial adviser who got laid off from J.P. Morgan two months ago.

Weitner used to earn $175,000 a year. Now, he's living off savings and contemplating moving back to Atlanta, where he would earn about $30,000 a year working for a gym.

On Friday afternoon, he had just come out of a job interview at another health club, his last shot at staying in New York.

"It's surreal. An industry just collapsed," he said, leaning against a wall, his shoulders slumped. "Everything I've worked for is gone."

Nearby, business developer Anthony Brown, 35, said he had been watching the market swings with fear.

"I think it's time to buy a few acres in Vermont and grease up that shotgun," he said. "It's bad. I think we should buy as much gold as we can."

Some people stopped to vent their anger on a giant portrait of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke propped against a wall across the street from the exchange.

Artist Geoffrey Raymond handed out brown Sharpie markers, inviting people to write their thoughts on the piece, "The Annotated Fed."

"You should have seen this coming — we did," read one typical comment.

"For me, it's about letting people have a voice in a situation in which they are otherwise voiceless," said Raymond, who recently did a similar portrait of Lehman Brothers Chief Executive Richard Fuld.

The glumness was felt up and down the street. Down Broad Street, the posh Hermès store was nearly empty. Hot-dog vendor Mohammed Abjelrahim, 23, said that in the past week, he has had about half the customers as usual at his cart, positioned across the street from the exchange.