Oil fell below $40 a barrel as investors worried that a weak economy will hurt demand. That weighed on energy stocks. Financial stocks also declined as investors looked to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, which could announce as early as Monday a deal to combine their brokerages. The potential tie-up underscores the troubles with tattered balance sheets that many banks are still trying to address.
Investors are also digesting comments from General Motors that the company has presented a worst-case scenario to Congress in which it would need more money than the $13.4 billion allocated by the Treasury Department.
