The stock market remained broadly lower this afternoon in heavy selling sparked by the Middle East turmoil and resulting oil price surge. Severe setbacks in foreign financial centers had set the stage for a panicky day on Wall Street. The Dow Jones average of 30 blue chips was off 79.20 points at 2,730.45 by 3 p.m. on Wall Street, an improvement from the morning's 100-plus-point loss. Declining issues held a huge lead over advances on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,514 down, 239 up and 247 unchanged. Trading activity slowed slightly from Friday's unusually brisk pace. But volume on the floor of the Big Board still came to a heavy 207.13 million shares with two hours left to go. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks fell 5.13 to 183.69. Meanwhile, at the American Stock Exchange the market value index lost 6.06 to 340.57. NYSE spokesman Richard Torrenzano told reporters the nation's biggest stock market was weathering the session with no problems. ``Circuit breakers'' designed to cushion market declines were tripped by early activity in stocks and stock index futures. He said the mechanisms were working without a hitch and appeared to have steadied the volatile market. In Washington, a Securities and Exchange Commission spokesman had no comment while a spokeman at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said the agency was monitoring the situation. U.S. stocks, already battered by concerns about U.S. economic health, have been hurt by speculation that sharply higher oil prices could trigger a recession accompanied by rising inflation. A few stocks, particularly oil and related issues, benefited from the situation. But a plea from the White House for oil companies to resist hiking prices tempered the rally. Exxon added &rsqb; to 53{, Texaco rose } to 65&rsqb;, Chevron gained | to 79&rsqb;, Mobil moved up 1 to 67~ and Amoco added { to 58. The most Big Board issue was Philip Morris, which lost 1~ to 44| as more than 3.2 million shares changed hands. Among other heavily traded blue chips, International Business Machines slid 2~ to 104, American Telephone & Telegraph skidded 1{ to 34{, American Express pulled back 1| to 26&lsqb; and General Electric lost 3{ to 66\. UAL plunged 10 to 112{ after a published report indicated a proposed employee-led buyout has run into possible new difficulty. Market watchers had expected stocks to encounter rough going. Worries about the economic impact of the Persian Gulf crisis and resulting oil price spiral had caused investors to bail out of stocks in a big way earlier in Tokyo, London and elsewhere. But market analysts expected stocks to stabilize at the current lower levels.
