The centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe have experienced a serious deterioration in economic performance in the 1970s: growth slowdown and occasional decline, external imbalance, growing foreign indebtedness, rising open and repressed inflation, shortages, informal markets, etc.

"That has made global demand weak, and that has been one of the causes of the growth slowdown over the past five years."

The growth slowdown will make the public deficit and debt worse and potentially unsustainable over time.

Housing prices rose six-tenths of 1 percent, a moderate increase that is "consistent with a growth slowdown," he added.

There is not enough evidence yet, he said, to conclude that this week's data reflects a significant growth slowdown that would affect earnings and, therefore, stocks.

I've been frantic about Staggy's growth slowdown, since I took him off a balcony at my old place last summer and hung him under a skylight in my new bathroom.

The European growth slowdown is forecast to be even more marked, with a fall in GDP by 0.6% and a possible fall of 2% if the euro currency club breaks up.

Going into this year, policy makers were betting on a growth slowdown to bring the pace of the economy to a sustainable rate that would not add to inflationary pressures.

Mr. Shulman called such a growth slowdown a "time correction"; Mr. McManus labeled it a stealth bear market.

"As investors are forced to confront the reality of a growth slowdown, they're likely to pay less attention to the economically sensitive names," said Jack Caffrey, equity strategist at JPMorgan Private Bank.