The U.S. economy can't seem to ...
It keeps showing strength and weakness, with fresh data yesterday providing still more mixed signals -- and fueling a debate over whether the housing slump is dragging the nation into a recession.</br></br>The conflicting data could be a sign that the economy is turning, with what was at first a mild growth slowdown about to give way to a harsher downturn, some analysts said. But others echoed the Federal Reserve, countering that the worst news is still coming from businesses involved in housing and automobile production while the rest of the economy is holding up.</br></br>The situation has left many investors confused and queasy; stock prices rose yesterday after falling Friday, as did the dollar.</br></br>"No question, housing is in a recession," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for Global Insight, an economic research and forecasting firm. "The big question, and where people part ways, is how much effect is this going to have on consumer spending and business spending? . . . Yes, there are scary parts of the economy, but there are other parts that are doing okay."</br></br>The pessimists could point yesterday to the Commerce Department's report that new orders to U.S. factories fell 4.7 percent in October, the steepest decline in six years. Much of that reflected falling demand for home-building equipment and materials, as well as automakers' production cuts, analysts said. That echoed a report released Friday showing that manufacturing declined in November.