Global growth worries rattle Wall St.; Dow rises

By Kristina Cooke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq fell on Wednesday as signs of increasingly sluggish growth in the United States and the rest of the world rattled investors already unsettled about the outlook for consumer spending and corporate profits.

The Dow eked out a modest gain, however, helped by Home Depot (HD.N: Quote, Profile, Research). The home improvement retailers' shares rose 4.5 percent after its chief executive said the battered U.S. housing market's decline may be nearing an end.

And General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), another Dow component, said it thinks it has seen the bottom of the downturn in the auto industry, as well as indications that the housing market is near bottom.

Shares of wireless companies fell, weighing on the Nasdaq, after comments from mobile chipmaker Qualcomm's (QCOM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) chief executive and JPMorgan analysts fueled concerns that the demand for cell phones is slowing.

A continued decline in the price of oil failed to spark optimism, with investors instead calling it yet another symptom of slowing global demand.

The Federal Reserve said in its Beige Book report that economic activity has been slow across most of the United States in recent weeks, though there has been some relief from high commodity and energy prices.

"There are global economic concerns and that has spilled right over into the U.S. markets," said Fred Dickson, market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

"The market is also digesting the Fed's Beige Book, which showed soft economic conditions -- but all things considered, stocks seem to be holding up quite well today."