Stocks Fall After Dow Cracks 1,600
NEW YORK. Feb. 4ÛÓThe stock market declined slightly today in a busy and erratic session, retreating alter the Dow Jones industrial average passed 1,600 for the first time. Energy and bank issues were notably weak.</br></br>The Dow Jones average of 30 blue chips, up more than 6 points at midday and off more than 10 points later in the session, closed with a 1.04-point loss at 1,593.23. Volume on the New York Stock Exchange reached 175.73 million shares, against 145.28 million Monday.</br></br>When the Dow touched 1,600 early in the session, it sported a gain of more than 100 points front its midday low less than two weeks before, on Jan. 22.</br></br>Analysts said investors once again were trying to sort out both the positive and negative effects of falling oil prices. Oil prices in the futures and spot markets tumbled toward $15 a barrel today, continuing a tailspin that has cut the price of a barrel of oil by more than half since November.</br></br>Helping feed the trading frenzy was the failure.of an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries committee in a two-day meeting in Vienna, Austria, to agree on a strategy for defending its share of the glutted oil market. OPECÛªs indecision, and the once-mighty cartelÛªs willingness to engage in a price war to hold on to its share of the world oil market, have helped to depress oil prices.