The carnage on Wall Street continued Wednesday morning as stocks continued their slide despite the Federal Reserve’s $85 million lifeline to American International Group.

In morning trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 248.9 points, or 2.3 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 57.1 points, or 2.6 percent. Asian markets closed mixed and European bourses edged lower in afternoon trading.

The Morgan Stanley High Tech Index fell 2.4 percent as Google lost 2 percent to $434.02, Microsoft dropped 2 percent to $25.48, Apple skidded 3.6 percent to $134.85 and eBay dipped 3.2 percent to $22.09.

SanDisk, however, charged higher, gaining 45.4 percent to $21.87, after the company rejected as inadequate a $5.85 billion takeover bid from Samsung. Also gaining ground was Adobe Systems, which tacked on 3.5 percent to $39.48 after posting higher than expected earnings.

In Asia, the Hang Seng Index lost 3.6 percent to 17,637 and the Shanghai Composite fell 2.9 percent to 1,929, but Japan’s Nikkei swam against the tide, rising 1.2 percent to 140 after Japan’s central bank injected more liquidity into the banking system.

In afternoon trading in Europe, the FTSE 100 dropped 1.1 percent to 4,970, the German DAX lost .8 percent to 5,916 and the French CAC 40 fell .7 percent to 4,058.

After days of speculation on the future of AIG after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve made its move.

AIG, the world’s largest insurance company, will get a loan of up to $85 billion in exchange for a 79.9 percent stake in the company.

The loan will charge interest at 8.5 percentage points above the three month London Interbank Offered Rate. The heavy debt burden is expected to trigger a rapid asset sale by AIG to pay off the loan.