NEW YORK — Wall Street's wait is up: the Federal Reserve meets next week to decide what to do about interest rates.

Investors can call it what they like — their Super Bowl, their Election Day, their Day of Reckoning — but they might want to keep in mind that Tuesday's decision may end up raising as many questions as it answers.

The stock market plunged from record highs this summer on fears about souring home loans and excessive leveraged debt strangling corporate and economic growth. Since then, the big question on Wall Street has been: Will the Fed finally lower interest rates? Tuesday afternoon, investors will find out.

No matter what the outcome, the stock market could be in for a wild ride.

Like many investment strategists, Bob Doll of BlackRock Inc. believes Fed policymakers will lower rates by a quarter-point rate Tuesday and alter their assessment of the economy — particularly given a decline of 4,000 jobs in August and weakening retail sales. But, he added, even if the market gets its rate cut, the next day the market will probably ask: Now what?

"I'm not even sure good news from the Fed means we're out of the woods in terms of volatility," Doll said.

With all of the recent weak economic data, many investors have been crossing their fingers for a half-point rate cut, a move Kurt Karl, Swiss Re's top U.S. economist, said policymakers don't want to make. "I don't think they want to give the market everything it wants. It's a very difficult situation."

Moreover, some experts argue the Fed may not go through with a rate cut at all because the central bank, which hasn't reduced the benchmark fed funds rate since 2003, wants to avoid being viewed as bailing out investors. Plus, the dollar has fallen to an all-time low versus the 13-nation euro, the price of crude oil is in record terrain, and the Dow Jones industrial average is only 4 percent below the all-time high of 14,000.41 it reached in July.

The major stock indexes fared well this week; a good deal of the gains came from high expectations of a rate cut, but some were also due to positive corporate news and an apparent return to normalcy in the market for commercial paper — bonds that companies sell for quick cash. The Dow ended up 2.51 percent; the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2.11 percent; and the Nasdaq composite index rose 1.42 percent.

Ultimately, the Fed's two main concerns are core inflation — which strips out food and energy prices, and has been easing recently — and the economy, which is at a greater risk of dipping into recession if the Fed doesn't make a rate cut, Karl said.

"Is it a bailout, or a protection of the economy? You can interpret it both ways," he said.

Karl said it's not the Fed's job to worry about the dollar, except for how it may affect the economy.