NEW YORK (Reuters) - The credit crisis weighing on markets still has some time to play out, and consumers may have tough times ahead, according to economists in the latest WSJ.com forecasting survey, the Wall Street Journal said.

However, confidence in the Federal Reserve's ability to handle the tough economic situation remains high, the Journal said Thursday in its online edition.

When asked about the credit crisis and related market woes, more than half the economists said it was about half over, while 25 percent said it's still in the early stages, the Journal reported, adding that 15 percent said the credit troubles are over, or mostly over.

According to the Journal, 28 percent of the economists said the credit crunch was the biggest downside risk to their forecasts. The concern came in second only to housing, which drew 30 percent of the responses, the newspaper said.

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Asked if the problems in the U.S. housing market would spill over into consumer spending, about four out of five economists said "yes," according to the Journal.

The newspaper also said that 77 percent of the economists agreed that the Fed did the right thing by cutting interest rates by a quarter-percentage point last month.

On average, they expect the Fed to hold rates steady at the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting which is next month, the Journal said.

(Reporting by Justin Grant; Editing by Valerie Lee)