News stories from Tuesday January 18, 1977

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Record-breaking cold hit the entire eastern half of the country again, with New York City going through seven consecutive hours of only two-degree temperatures, while the rest of the metropolitan area endured similar freezes. Coast Guard cutters cleared Hudson River ice that was delaying oil barges for Albany, and in Syracuse 100,000 pupils found their schools closed because of fuel problems. [New York Times] Downtown Dayton came nearly to a halt, with banks closing early, stores staying shut, factories closed down and schools suspended, as the Ohio city responded to the weather-caused energy crisis in more far-reaching ways than most of the country. Depending on the weather, the cutbacks will continue for another day or two. [New York Times] Natural gas shortages that had idled thousands in the eastern United States deepened, although cold-induced mechanical problems with electric generators were reduced. Some plants whose natural gas was cut off to give home users priority switched to other available fuels. [New York Times] The gross national product rose at an annual rate of only 3 percent in the last quarter of 1976 because of a cautious inventory policy by businesses. Real final demand was actually stronger than in previous quarters -- a good augury for the future. The nation's total output for goods and services was 6.2 percent above the 1975 figure. [New York Times] President-elect Carter named Kenneth Axelson, a former deputy mayor of New York, as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Anthony Solomon to be Under Secretary for Monetary Affairs and Fred Bergsten as Assistant Secretary for International Affairs. In addition, Lyle Gramley and Prof. William Nordhaus were appointed to membership on the Council of Economic Advisers. [New York Times] Stock prices declined moderately in heavy trading, with Dow Jones industrials down 4.82 points to close at 962.43. Bond prices were down and interest rates continued their climb in the credit markets. [New York Times] A tradition was broken when New York's new Democratic Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, announced that he would recommend that the Carter administration continue in office the Republican-appointed United States attorneys for Manhattan, Brooklyn and Buffalo. Democratic leaders, including Joseph Crangle, who was Mr. Moynihan's campaign chairman, were incensed. [New York Times] Two strategic cruise missiles, the Navy's Tomahawk and an Air Force weapon that could be launched from strategic bombers, won Defense Department authorization for development. The action could affect the next round of strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union, which has demanded that long-range cruise missiles be counted as part of the strategic arsenal of the United States. [New York Times] India will elect a new parliament in March, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced, as part of a major relaxation of her 19-month-old emergency rule. She declared her "unshakable faith in the power of the people" three hours after the release of former Deputy Prime Minister Morarji Desai and L.K. Advani, leader of the right-wing Jan Sangh Party, from jail. Sources said about a dozen members of Parliament, including Raj Nain, leader of the Socialists, remained in prison. [New York Times] Egyptian students and workers rioted in Cairo and other cities protesting wide-ranging price increases ordered by the government. They destroyed a big poster of President Anwar Sadat and 'chanted "Down with Sadat!" in running battles with the police. [New York Times] Yugoslavia's Prime Minister, Dzernal Bljedic, was killed with his wife in the crash of an executive jet shortly after they had seen President Tito off on a visit to Libya and the Middle East. Mr. Bijedic was 60, of Moslem background, a Communist since 1939, with a reputation as an able administrator rather than a political leader who might be a successor to Tito. [New York Times] A new bacterium is believed by scientists at the Federal Center for Disease Control to be the cause of the mysterious disease that killed 29 persons who were in Philadelphia last summer during a state American Legion convention. It is also thought that the previously unknown bacterium caused the mysterious 1965 outbreak of pneumonia that took 8 lives at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. The bacteria were found by inoculating material taken from autopsies into guinea pigs and growing material from them in eggs. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 962.43 (-4.82, -0.50%)
S&P Composite: 103.32 (-0.41, -0.40%)
Arms Index: 1.27

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	634	7.94
Declines	850	13.47
Unchanged	454	2.97
Total Volume		24.38

* in millions of shares

Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish.

Market Index Trends
Date	DJIA	S&P	Volume*
January 17, 1977	967.25	103.73	21.06
January 14, 1977	972.16	104.01	24.48
January 13, 1977	976.15	104.20	24.78
January 12, 1977	968.25	103.40	22.67
January 11, 1977	976.65	104.12	24.10
January 10, 1977	986.87	105.20	20.86
January 7, 1977	983.13	105.01	21.72
January 6, 1977	979.89	105.02	23.92
January 5, 1977	978.06	104.76	25.01
January 4, 1977	987.87	105.70	22.74