Disheartening data on manufacturing, construction spending, and auto sales weighed on equities Monday

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U.S. stocks ended mostly lower in continuance Monday with swings confined to a fairly narrow trading sweep before Tuesday’s U.S. presidential predestination and a ponderous dose of household reports later in the week, according to S&P MarketScope. The market gave up earlier gains as traders digested a bruit that Ford Motor Co.’s (F) October vehicle sales skidded 32.7% and two downbeat economic data releases: October’s ISM manufacturing index lay low to 38.9 from 43.5 in September, space of time U.S. construction spending fell 0.3% in September.

On Monday afternoon, the Dow Jones industrial average closed 5.18 points, or 0.06%, let down at 9,319.83. The broader S&P 500 index added edged from a high to a low position 2.45 points, or 0.25%, to 966.30. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index gained 5.38 points, or 0.31%, to finish at 1,726.33.

On the New York Stock Exchange, 16 funds advanced in price for every 13 that declined. The ratio on the Nasdaq was 14-12 positive. Consumer staples stocks were among the best performers of the session, while energy and retailing stocks that showed gains last week came back down adhering profit-taking.

Governments encompassing the world continued their efforts to war the global financial push. South Korea pledged more cash to rev up its economy, and central banks in Europe and Australia looked set to cut rates again in a raging battle to keep the financial crisis from shoving the world into its worst slump in decades, according to a Reuters report. Seoul announced $11 billion in new spending and tax cuts. Dismal Australian economic facts cemented expectations that its central bank enjoin slash interest rates on Tuesday.

In Europe, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank have both primed investors for another round of cuts later this week. The U.S. Federal Reserve and central banks in Japan, China and India every one of divide borrowing costs last week in every effort to shield their economies from the fallout from the crisis, which started when the U.S. housing boom turned sour 15 months ago. But economists cited by Reuters say that during the time that trillions of dollars in brim bailouts and stimulus packages may have averted a financial meltdown and may spare the creation a repeat of the 1930s Great Depression, the economic outlook is grim.

The Treasury and banking regulators say as many as 1,800 publicly held institutions could put for government investments in coming weeks, according to a Wall Street Journal report, out of concern that insolvency to do so could make them losers in a banking sector reshaped by dint of. the Treasury’s $700 billion rescue plan. Depending upon conditions still being crafted by Treasury, thousands more secluded banks could apply as being body of executive officers capital as well, a Treasury spokeswoman said Sunday.

The Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officers’ survey showed a memorandum number of banks tightened terms without ceasing business loans from beginning to end the past three months, to the degree that long as demand for loans from households and businesses also declined, Action Economics said. In an interview on Bloomberg TV, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher declared that tight regard conditions are hurting the U.S. regulation and “blunting” the impact of Fed rate cuts. He expects naught economic growth through 2009 and admits that inflationary forces have not just subsided, but have been “vaporized.” He doesn’t see signs of a deflationary trend taking hold, however.

Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said the U.S. management is “in a contraction. Up until the summer it was a fairly mild recession,” Lacker told reporters after a oration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “I think it’s definitely a recession at this point. How deep, by what means steep, and spun out it’s going to be is uncertain. We don’t know if it’s going to be a garden variety recession or something steeper. I think it’s greatest in number pleasing to be of a fairly moderate size,” he said.

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