News stories from Wednesday March 30, 1977

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

President Carter was rebuffed on his budget proposals when the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives rejected a cutback on water projects and insisted on a $2.3 billion defense budget cut. While calling for spending generally below levels urged by the Appropriations Committee and various authorizing committees, it asked substantially more than Mr. Carter did for education, welfare, community development, agriculture and interest on the national debt. [New York Times] The economic index pointed up in February, the Commerce Department said, with its barometer of leading indicators rising four-tenths of 1 percent after dropping 1.2 percent in January. The department's economist who manages the compilation said this was additional confirmation that the weather accounted for the drop and that the renewed upward trend meant better business ahead. [New York Times] Stocks declined sharply, with Dow Jones industrials dropping 10.80 points to close at 921.21, their poorest reading since Jan. 13, 1976. The drop of 83 points so far this year continued to puzzle most investors and Wall Street analysts and seemed related to fears of an upsurge in inflation and uncertainty over Carter administration policies in areas such as energy. [New York Times] The Carter White House staff is now larger than President Ford's, Mr. Carter's aide for budget and organization acknowledged, while saying this was just temporary. Richard Harden told reporters that cuts were coming but would fall considerably short of Mr. Carter's original goal of a 30 percent reduction. [New York Times] Mike Mansfield, the former Senate Majority Leader, who has often been mentioned as a possible United States representative in Peking, has been selected as Ambassador to Japan, according to administration officials. Prof. Robert Bowie of Harvard, a former State Department policy planning chief, has been appointed Deputy for National Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency. [New York Times] The Select Committee on Assassinations will continue through the end of 1978, the House of Representatives decided in a 230 to 181 vote that followed the resignation of its controversial chief counsel, Richard Sprague. The committee had been scheduled to expire tomorrow. [New York Times] In 15 of 16 American cities -- Los Angeles being the exception -- money shortages have brought a decline in urban services and the quality of life similar to New York's much publicized cutbacks. A check has found reduced municipal services in cities from Seattle to Atlanta. [New York Times] Westinghouse Electric settled out of court for cash, equipment and services with a value up to $11.5 million the claims of three Pennsylvania utilities for failing to deliver 646,000 pounds of uranium for their operations. The significance lay as a possible pattern for settlement of a much larger case against Westinghouse involving 24 other power companies. [New York Times] Uranus has at least five rings like those around the planet Saturn, according to Cornell University scientists observing from a National Aeronautics and Space Administration plane with a 36-inch telescope. NASA said these were the first major solar system structures found since the planet Pluto in 1930. [New York Times] Talks in Moscow broke down on a treaty to limit offensive missiles and bombers carrying nuclear warheads. Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, rejected as inequitable both the Carter administration proposals for breaking the two-year impasse that had been presented by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Mr. Vance expressed disappointment, but insisted that overall Soviet-American relations had not been impaired.President Carter said he was undismayed by the setback to the treaty hopes. He added at a Washington news conference that if the Soviet Union failed to negotiate in good faith at a May round of discussions in Geneva he would be forced to consider speeding weapons developments. [New York Times] American analysts of the disastrous collision between KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Pan American Airways jetliners believe the tragedy might have been averted if the Dutch plane's radioed message saying it was taking off had been clearer. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 921.21 (-10.80, -1.16%)
S&P Composite: 98.54 (-1.15, -1.15%)
Arms Index: 1.82

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	375	2.62
Declines	1,051	13.39
Unchanged	459	2.80
Total Volume		18.81

* 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*
March 29, 1977	932.01	99.69	17.03
March 28, 1977	926.11	99.00	16.71
March 25, 1977	928.86	99.06	16.55
March 24, 1977	935.67	99.70	19.65
March 23, 1977	942.32	100.20	19.36
March 22, 1977	950.96	101.00	18.66
March 21, 1977	953.54	101.31	18.04
March 18, 1977	961.02	101.86	19.84
March 17, 1977	964.84	102.08	20.70
March 16, 1977	968.00	102.17	22.14