Consumer spending worries send stocks lower

It became clear to investors that it's going to be hard to rely on the average consumer to pull the economy out of its downturn. Late Monday, Starbucks Corp. reported lower sales across the coffee chain, and early Tuesday, Toll Brothers Inc. posted a sharp drop in revenue and said it was too difficult to predict what the luxury homebuilder's profit would be next year.

Wall Street was also jittery as the nation's feeble automakers hope for a bailout from the federal government similar to the one given ailing insurer American International Group Inc. General Motors Corp., whose shares have plunged to 60-year lows, said late Monday it would cut 1,900 factory jobs on top of the 3,600 cuts it announced Friday.

Stocks did recover from deeper losses after a media report that quoted a BlackRock executive as saying a $30 billion Bear Stearns mortgage portfolio could be worth more than its market value suggests. And in another promising sign for mortgages, the government announced the largest moves yet to help homeowners renegotiate hundreds of thousands of delinquent loans held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

But the market ultimately ended lower, acknowledging that although the mortgage crisis that spawned the current economic deterioration is being addressed, the economy remains extremely troubled.

There were no economic reports released Tuesday, since the government and bond markets were closed for Veterans Day. Investors didn't need government data to see that the economy's slide isn't over, though--the litany of troubling corporate news was enough. Wall Street has been anticipating grim results from corporate America, but it cannot gauge yet how bad they could get.

"We're in a situation where we really don't know how deep a recession we're in," said Jim Herrick, manager of equity trading at Baird & Co. "Until there's some clarity on the economy and clarity with earnings, we'll definitely be stuck in this trading range."

The market has been giving back gains recently--including a 248-point advance last Friday--as it tries to recover from October's heavy selling. Stocks pared nearly all of its losses on the report that BlackRock President Robert Kapito said a Bear Stearns mortgage portfolio is generating cash flow, but then sank again. It was the collapse of the subprime mortgage market more than a year ago and a resulting series of financial industry catastrophes that led to the economy's current predicament.

The market is likely to keep following that pattern of quickly giving back gains until investors have a sense that an economic recovery is coalescing. But most assessments of the economy are still quite bleak.

"I think we will, in fact, look back all the way to the 1929 period to see the kind of slowdown we're experiencing now," said Merrill Lynch Chief Executive John Thain at a conference Tuesday. "And the great degree of uncertainty in the marketplace is how deep, how long and what are the governments around the world going to do to try to provide stimulus to the environment?"