News stories from Thursday February 10, 1977

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

Part of President Carter's tax reform program that he will present later this year will include the substitution of tax credits for the present personal exemptions allowed taxpayers and their dependents. This would benefit taxpayers earning less than $16,000 a year, but would probably penalize those making more, a Treasury official said. The White House announced that Mr. Carter would answer questions in a two-hour radio "call-in" program that will be carried by CBS from 2 to 4 P.M. Saturday, March 5. [New York Times] The memoirs of Henry Kissinger, which still have to be written, will be published by Little, Brown & Company of Boston, which won out over a half dozen other big publishing houses. No dollar amounts for the North American book rights were disclosed by Little, Brown or by Mr. Kissinger's literary representative, but publishing sources put the figure at $2 million. [New York Times] To foster energy conservation, a nationwide movement of business, labor, states, cities, universities and homeowners has been organized on a bipartisan basis by Senators Charles Percy and Hubert Humphrey with President Carter's support. [New York Times] In its internal deliberations over policy with which to deal with the poor countries, the Carter administration is developing a strategy that will involve more development aid as the key to transferring wealth, a Treasury official said. Fred Bergsten, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, said that the intensive analysis had found "many merits" in the direct assistance approach combined with an enlarged resource transfer role for multinational institutions such as the World Bank. [New York Times] Stock prices rose for the first time in four days, bringing the Dow Jones industrial average up 4.08 points to 937.92. The increase was attributed to a report from the Commerce Department that said that many of the people who had been put out of work by the natural gas shortage had returned to their jobs. The brightest spot in the credit market was the tax-exempt bond market. Reflecting gains in price this week, the Bond Buyer's index of the tax-exempt bond yield declined seven basis points to 5.86 percent from 5.93 percent a week ago. This was the first decline in four weeks. [New York Times] The Eastman Kodak Company reported an 8.6 percent increase in fourth quarter net income on a sales gain of 6.3 percent. The company's net income for all of last year was up 6 percent and sales 8 percent over 1975. [New York Times] Extortion and bribery charges were the basis of most of the increased indictments of public officials in recent years. The Justice Department's public integrity section reported that such indictments increased from 63 in 1970 to 337 in 1976. [New York Times] The immediate dismissal of Richard Sprague as chief counsel and director of the House Select Committee on Assassinations was requested by the committee's chairman, Representative Henry Gonzalez of Texas, but other committee members told Mr. Sprague to disregard the notice. Mr. Gonzalez charged that Mr. Sprague "has engaged in a course of conduct that is wholly intolerable for any employee of the House." [New York Times] The New York Jets are negotiating a move from Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadow, Queens, to the Hackensack Meadowlands in East Rutherford. N.J., and were said to be "very, very close" to an agreement with the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. [New York Times] Repeal of the Byrd amendment that has allowed the United States to import chrome from Rhodesia despite United Nations sanctions was urged on the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Emphasizing that he was speaking on behalf of President Carter and the entire administration, Mr. Vance said that repeal would help the chances for a peaceful settlement of the Rhodesian problem and "return the United States to conformity with its obligations under the United Nations Charter." [New York Times] Exploration "in depth" of the possibility that the Palestinian leadership has moderated its position toward Israel will be made by Secretary Vance during his trip to the Middle East next week. He said in an interview that "if there has been a moderation in the Palestinian position, then obviously this would be a helpful step." [New York Times] Yuri Odov, a leading dissident, was arrested in Moscow not long after he left a hiding place to tell Western correspondents that the State Department had made the situation safer with its declaration of support for another dissident, Aleksandr Ginzburg, seized last week. [New York Times] The Chinese government's investments in Hong Kong are growing rapidly. One of these is a new gasoline station which sells gasoline from China. In the last year, China has also begun building a large machinery manufacturing factory, oil storage facilities and a ship repair yard. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 937.92 (+4.08, +0.44%)
S&P Composite: 100.82 (+0.09, +0.09%)
Arms Index: 0.88

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	728	10.34
Declines	722	8.98
Unchanged	438	3.02
Total Volume		22.34

* 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*
February 9, 1977	933.84	100.73	23.64
February 8, 1977	942.24	101.60	24.04
February 7, 1977	946.31	101.89	20.70
February 4, 1977	947.89	101.88	23.13
February 3, 1977	947.14	101.85	23.79
February 2, 1977	952.79	102.36	25.70
February 1, 1977	958.36	102.54	23.70
January 31, 1977	954.37	102.03	22.92
January 28, 1977	957.53	101.93	22.70
January 27, 1977	954.54	101.79	24.36