Sara Lepro
AP Business Writer

(AP:NEW YORK) Wall Street overcame an early slide and traded mixed Wednesday as investors absorbed more evidence of a still-weakening economy, including a disappointing report on the services sector.

The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said the services sector contracted dramatically in November as slower spending hurt insurers, retailers and hotels.

ISM, which reported a discouraging reading on the manufacturing sector earlier this week, said its services sector index fell to 37.3 in November from 44.4 in October. The reading was significantly lower than the 42 the market expected.

The news follows an earlier report from the Labor Department that productivity growth slowed in the third quarter.

Investors also got some bad news from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, which lowered its third-quarter outlook. RIM said it has added fewer new subscribers than expected amid the worsening economic slump. The news added to investor worries about the impact of the recession on consumer spending, a crucial economic component.

It appeared that investors, while clearly uneasy amid the latest string of bad news, were taking it in stride. The data, even when it was worse than expected, did not come as a surprise.

Stocks, which rebounded Tuesday following a sharp decline Monday, are expected to remain volatile through the week ahead of November retail sales figures and the government’s employment report.

"This is a week where the market expects a lot of bad news," said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Investments. We’re expecting the largest drop in jobs in quite some time."

Due later Wednesday is the Federal Reserve’s beige book, an assessment of business conditions in different regions of the country.

In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 34.09, or 0.40 percent, to 8,385.00, but pulled back from an earlier loss of 180 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dipped 2.11, or 0.25 percent, to 846.70, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 4.24, or 0.29 percent, to 1,454.04.

INO

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