After Stock Market Slide Data Take On New Urgency

TIM PARADIS

NEW YORK (AP) — After a forceful reminder that the third quarter is history, stock investors are now uneasy about the final months of the year.

Stocks posted their biggest losses in four months Friday as traders worried that consumers won't be able to help lift the economy. Only a day earlier, investors celebrated news that the economy grew at the fastest pace in two years in the July-September period.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 200 points Thursday only to tumble 250 on Friday.

The market's volatility adds urgency to a flood of data this week that could help signal whether investors have been prescient or premature in the bets they've been placing on a rebound in the economy. The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 2 percent for October to break a seven-month streak of gains but is still up 53.2 percent from a 12-year low in March.

Much of this week's data on employment, manufacturing, services and home sales will provide investors with more up-to-date snapshots of the economy than last week's numbers on the third quarter. The Federal Reserve also will weigh in after it wraps up a two-day meeting on interest rate policy.