Washington ? The nation’s hard-hit manufacturers suffered another drop in demand for their products while consumer confidence slid to the lowest level in nearly 10 years, raising new fears of a possible double-dip recession.

However, housing remained one of the few bright spots as sales of both new and existing homes posted strong increases in September.

A batch of new reports released Friday depicted an economy continuing to struggle.

The Commerce Department said that orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket durable goods fell by 5.9 percent in September, the biggest decrease in 10 months and the third decline in the past four months.

The new weakness was led by a huge plunge in orders for communication equipment, but the declines were widespread across most industries.

Meanwhile, consumer confidence as measured by a University of Michigan survey declined to 80.6 in October, the lowest level since 1993, as Americans were spooked by the falling stock market and rising concerns about a possible war with Iraq.

It marked the fifth-monthly decline in confidence and raised worries that consumer spending, the biggest prop holding up the economy, could be in danger of faltering.

The brightest spot for the economy continued to be housing sales, with new home sales rising by 0.4 percent in September to a record annual rate of 1.021 million units while sales of existing homes were up 1.9 percent to an annual rate of 5.40 million units.