The Fed had suggested for several months that it expected its next move to be to raise rates from their current 40-year-low levels to keep the economy from overheating. But it adopted a policy stance today that is often a precursor to a rate cut, saying that the main risk now is that the economy will stall.

In a sign, however, that it did not want investors, consumers and businesses to think that it would definitely cut rates — and in a possible indication of uncertainty or disagreement within the Fed about how to proceed — the central bank also noted that interest rates are already so low that they should eventually help get the economy going again.

The Fed "did the least it could do without looking stupid," said Paul McCulley, chief economist at Pimco, a bond trading firm.

The unanimous decision not to cut rates and to issue a more pessimistic assessment of the economy generated some disappointment on Wall Street. Stock prices fell after the Fed's announcement, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing at 8,482.39, down 206.50 for the day. The Nasdaq lost 37.56, to close at 1,269.28.

The economy showed signs early this year that it had left the recession behind, but the major indicators have faltered since then. The tumble in the stock market, the corporate scandals, declining consumer confidence and a reluctance among businesses to invest in new factories and equipment have all contributed to concern that the United States might relapse into recession.

The economy grew at a 5 percent annual rate in the first quarter but slowed to a 1.1 percent rate in the second quarter. Economists have been scaling back their growth projections for the rest of the year. The unemployment rate, currently 5.9 percent, appears to have stabilized after rising sharply last year, but it has shown no signs of declining.

With investors feeling pain, the two political parties maneuvering over who is to blame and the global economy fragile, the Fed has been under increasing pressure to come to the rescue.

But Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman, has always been reluctant to be seen as responding directly to the stock market, and in any case it is not clear whether the recovery has just hit a bump or is truly in peril. As a result, the Fed's statement today tried to offer something for everyone: the prospect of lower rates should more bad news befall the economy, and a steady-as-she-goes policy should the current storm pass without causing major damage.

"The softening in the growth of aggregate demand that emerged this spring has been prolonged in large measure by weakness in financial markets and heightened uncertainty related to problems in corporate reporting and governance," said the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee, which sets policy.

"The current accommodative stance of monetary policy, coupled with still-robust underlying growth in productivity, should be sufficient to foster an improving business climate over time," the statement said.

Nonetheless, the committee said, "the risks are weighted mainly toward conditions that may generate economic weakness."

To a certain extent, Mr. Greenspan and his colleagues were simply acknowledging the obvious. But in doing so, they were setting out a path by which the Fed could end up driving official interest rates to a level far lower than anyone contemplated as the recession began in early 2001.

The central bank cut rates aggressively throughout last year. Its benchmark federal funds target rate on overnight loans among banks has been at 1.75 percent, a 40-year low, since December. The overnight rate controlled by the Fed influences longer-term rates set in the marketplace, including those for mortgages, automobile loans and small-business loans — rates that are all at low levels, helping keep many sectors of the economy robust.

In the futures markets, where investors try to discern the direction of interest rates, the betting today was that the central bank would cut the federal funds rate by at least a quarter of a percentage point before the end of the year. The Fed's next scheduled meeting is on Sept. 24 and will be followed by meetings in November and December.

Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services, said the Fed's decision to acknowledge the growing risks of economic weakness was "more than reasonable," but he said it did not mean that the Fed was now locked into cutting rates in September. The Fed, he said, "is unlikely to do anything extra without even more bad economic and financial news."

For all the gloom in the jobs numbers, there were significant strengths. Employment rose in retailing, wholesaling, transportation, mortgage banking, real estate, auto repair and, above all, health services, which generated 29,000 new jobs in July. Total employment in the nation held at 130.8 million. Nearly 1.8 million jobs had been lost from March of last year through last April, and the rebound since then is 94,000, including 66,000 in June.

The relatively large June rise came as a result of a revision announced yesterday. The original estimate had been 36,000.

John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Securities, said Mr. Greenspan would be watching closely for signs of a possible onset of a double-dip recession, especially a rise in new claims for unemployment insurance.

Maury Harris, chief United States economist for UBS Warburg, said that a "sufficiently weak string of data could still push the Fed over the edge." But he added that the economy retained considerable momentum, and he noted a government report today that retail sales rose by a healthy 1.2 percent in July.

"Consumers are responding to zero-rate financing incentives for autos," Mr. Harris said. "And they are eagerly signing on for new homes. Under these conditions, we anticipate growth of 2.5 percent this quarter and 3 percent next quarter."

Economists are divided about whether further rate cuts would help the economy now.

Those economists who say that the Fed should hold policy steady argue that a rate cut would not have much influence on the economy for a year, given that monetary policy works with a long lag.

In any case, they say, the economy's problems have much more to do with business, investor and consumer confidence than they do with interest rates; sectors of the economy, like housing, that are sensitive to interest rates are already doing well. A rate cut now, they say, would make the Fed appear panicky.

Those analysts who favor rate cuts point to signs of an emerging credit squeeze in the corporate bond market that is making it harder for some companies to obtain financing. They say a rate cut would have a positive psychological impact and would keep the Fed in front of what some analysts think is a growing threat of deflation — a broad-based, hard-to-reverse decline in prices that can cripple an economy.