MINYANVILLE ORIGINAL As negotiations continue in Washington on a deal to avert the automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to kick in at the start of the new year US equities stayed largely unchanged in spite of some positive economic reports.   The Conference Board reported that consumer confidence climbed to the highest level since February 2008 while the Commerce Department said that durable goods orders came in flat in October when economists had expected a decline.   "Consumer confidence is very important to us but we’ll ignore. I think we’ll start to pay attention to economic data ...