Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock fell 0.86 percent, and the Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.9 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.90 percent, Germany's DAX index tumbled 1.12 percent, and France's CAC-40 dropped 1.05 percent.

But the US market began recovering by midmorning, as investors examined the US economic reports released Thursday.

"As far as data goes, there's more good news than bad news," Hogan said.

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The Commerce Department said personal incomes rose in January at the fastest pace in a year, fueled in part by executive bonuses and pay hikes for federal workers. Meanwhile, consumer spending was up 0.5 percent; a confident consumer willing to spend is a good sign for Wall Street that the economy won't slow down too suddenly.

The report also showed inflation excluding often volatile energy and food prices rose 0.3 percent in January, the largest one-month gain since August. But the gauge that leaves in energy and food rose by 0.2 percent, and moderated to 2 percent year-over-year - at the top of the Fed's 1 percent to 2 percent target.

Not all the economic reports Thursday inspired confidence: Construction activity fell by 0.8 percent in January, double the decline analysts expected, while the Labor Department reported that the number of newly laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits rose by 7,000 last week to 338,000. Economists expected a drop in claims.

But taken together, recent data still paint a picture of moderating economic growth and cooling inflation - technically, an ideal long-term situation for stocks.

"The fear of recession is overblown. I don't think we're headed for recession in 2007," Cardillo said.

Until the stock market stabilizes, though, every piece of data released will be gnawed on and digested by jumpy investors, meaning a single snippet of bad news could trigger another huge selloff.

Friday won't bring much in a way of new economic information, except for a consumer sentiment report from the University of Michigan and a speech by St. Louis Fed President William Poole. Investors may look more at corporate data, especially in the technology sector, given Dell Inc.'s preliminary earnings report released Thursday after the bell.

The computer maker saw its fourth-quarter profit fall sharply Thursday as revenue declined by 4 percent. Dell fell 46 cents in after-hours trading from its closing price of $23.01.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 5 to 3 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 3.92 billion shares - just shy of Wednesday's volume of 3.93 billion shares, but much lighter than the 4.56 billion shares traded Tuesday.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 2.27, or 0.29 percent, to 791.03.

Meanwhile, oil prices rose for the seventh day in a row to settle at $62.11 a barrel Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest level in more than two months, as declining product supplies overshadowed traders' concerns about volatile global stock markets.

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