AFP/New York

Key housing sector data may provide direction for Wall Street in the coming week as the market looks for confirmation of economic recovery and girds for the year-end holiday period.

Investors are expected to carefully monitor data on sales of new and existing homes for evidence that a recovery is on track in the sector at the epicenter of the financial crisis.

The main indexes closed out a mixed week ahead of a week marked by the Thanksgiving Day holiday on Thursday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.46% on the week to 10,318.16, a third straight week of gains for blue chips.

But the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 1.01% to 2,146.04 and the broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 index shed 0.10 % to 1,091.38.

In the past week, the market was chilled by data showing a 10.6 % slide in October housing starts, along with a drop of four % in permits to build new homes, a leading indicator of the sector.

This makes data on existing home sales and new home sales more critical for investors, said Sal Guatieri at BMO Capital Markets.

“Several minor cracks are starting to form in the porous US housing market foundation,” he said. “After making limited headway through the spring, homebuilder sentiment has stalled in recent months, with buyer traffic and prospective sales flat-lining.”

With the two reports coming tomorrow and on Wednesday, Guatieri said, “any disappointment could rock equities. A renewed slump in sales would almost certainly destabilise house prices—and fan recovery risks.”

Another report that could influence the market will be Tuesday’s revised estimate for US gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter. Most analysts expect a revision to show 3.0% expansion from a first estimate of 3.5%.

Although the report is backward looking, it could provide clues on the nation’s economic momentum coming out of recession.

Dean Maki at Barclays Capital said he expects the report to show a softer pace of growth at 2.5%.

“Despite the likely downward revision, we still believe that the third quarter will prove to be the first quarter of recovery and that it demonstrates a decisive turn in the economy,” he said.

“The first estimate of third quarter corporate profits will also be released with this report. We look for another gain as a result of rises in output and prices, coupled with falling hours, worked.”

Some analysts are concerned that the huge rally since March of some 60% for the broad market has been the result of easy money from the Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rates.

This, according to some analysts has ignited a massive “carry trade” in which investors borrow at low rates to invest in riskier assets including stocks, commodities and bonds of other countries.

Although the Fed has shown no inclination to lift rates, the weak dollar has prompted growing complaints from around the world about a potential speculative bubble.

“The technical belief is that the dollar was oversold and is now likely going through a counter trade rally,” said Standard & Poor’s analyst Sam Stovall.

“The dollar is strenghthening, causing traders to lighten up on equities an commodities, using the excuse that they are sceptical about global economic growth in 2010.”

More emphatically, Fred Dickson at DA Davidson said that “global concerns continue to rise about an emerging global asset bubble fueled primarily by the US Federal Reserve’s low interest rate policy.”

He said officials in India, South Korea and Indonesia are considering policy moves “to limit the flow of hot speculative money into their stock and real estate markets.”

But Dickson said this may end up helping US shares.

“We may see some near-term restraint in the upward movement of

stock and real estate prices in Southeast Asia and India as governments implement policy change,” he said.

“The big question is where will the carry-trade money raised and held by speculative funds go if constrained from further investment in Southeast Asia? We look for at least some of these funds to continue to migrate back to the US stock market, which remains very liquid, very open to foreign and speculative trading activity, and continues to appear reasonably valued even after its recent rise from March’s low.”

Bonds gained for the week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond eased to to 3.356% from 3.503% a week earlier and that on the 30-year bond dipped to 4.295% against 4.394 %. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.