The data raised anew fears that the Federal Reserve Board will raise interest rates next month to cool growth and forestall inflation.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 31.44 points to 5,616.21, rebounding from a nearly 60-point loss.
Decliners led advancers by about a 9-to-5 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume totaled 256.95 million, compared with 321.10 million yesterday. Trading volume was relatively slow due to the upcoming Labor Day holiday Monday.
The NYSE's index fell 2.37 to 350.99; The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was down 5.41 to 651.99; The Nasdaq composite fell 2.95 to 1,142.08, while the American Stock Exchange index fell 1.66 to 559.68.
"Interest rate related stocks are all down," said David Shulman, chief market strategist at Salomon Brothers Inc. in New York.
The only major exceptions were smaller banks, Shulman noted, because they were perceived as takeover targets after today's announced buyout of St. Louis-based Boatmen's Bancshares Inc., by giant NationsBank Corp.
The latest economic figures also prompted selling of defensive stocks which investors buy during difficult times because of their resilience. Included were drug and food stocks. Cyclicals, which tend to track economic trends, were mixed.