News stories from Monday May 16, 1977

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

A world oil shortage by the 1980's is inevitable and carries an inherent risk of war, an international energy study has concluded. Non-Communist countries were warned that they must make enormous investments in coal, nuclear power and energy conservation. The study was begun two and a half years ago under the sponsorship of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with energy industrialists and analysts from 15 countries contributing to it. "Even with prompt action the margin between success and failure in the 1985-2000 period is slim," the study said. [New York Times] Tentative agreement on a national welfare plan has been reached by administration officials. They believe the plan would provide an adequate income to people unable to work and financial incentives to those who can work to find jobs. The plan would also give higher benefits to people working at low wages in private industry than it would to those who accept public jobs. This is expected to encourage workers to leave jobs on the public payroll and accept work in the private sector as it became available. [New York Times] The tax elements of the Carter energy program ran into a series of special concerns in the House Ways and Means Committee. Al Ullman, the chairman, opened with general praise, but the questioning thereafter of Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal by committee members showed the difficulties confronting the bulk of the measure. Propane, foreign trade, mass transit and the free market were among the concerns stressed. [New York Times] April provided the nation with its third month of solid economic growth in which industrial output increased 0.8 percent, the Federal Reserve Board said. The industrial increase compared with gains of 1.4 percent in March and 1 percent in February. The productivity rise in April was widespread throughout industry. The only exception was automobiles. [New York Times] Some recently depressed glamour issues rose in price in a general rise in the stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average was nearly seven points ahead by mid-afternoon, but it finished with a gain of 4.16 points at 932.50. Rising issues led losing ones by 9 to 5 and there were twice as many stocks posting 1977 highs as lows. [New York Times] Five persons were killed when a New York Airways helicopter idling atop the Pan Am Building's heliport in mid-town Manhattan keeled over on a broken landing gear. A huge rotor blade snapped off and struck and killed four people on the rooftop landing pad and then plunged over the skyscraper's west parapet. A fragment struck and killed a woman pedestrian on Madison Avenue at 43rd Street. At least seven persons were injured. [New York Times] Walter H. Annenberg, who In March withdrew his proposed gift of $40 million to finance a fine-arts communications center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has asked the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to submit a plan for a similar but broader center. One of the university's divisions Is the Annenberg School of Communications. Mr. Annenberg is an alumnus and trustee of the university. [New York Times] The mounting deficits in many Western countries' social security systems -- one of their most critical political and economic issues -- was apparently not mentioned at the recent economic conference of seven Western leaders in London. Problems associated with the funding of social security programs are becoming increasingly serious in most of the seven countries. In West Germany, for example, conflict over how to rescue the social security system from bankruptcy has shaken public confidence in the government of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. [New York Times] A raucous session in Parliament ended Israel's election campaign for the voting that will take place tomorrow. The meeting was held at the request of the opposition Likud, which wanted to question acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres on recent dealings with the United States. Voters will elect a 120-member Parliament. There are 20 competing party lists led by three main parties: the governing Labor Party, the Likud and the Democratic Movement for Change. [New York Times] Haiti's severe drought has brought hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, according to relief officials. There are unconfirmed reports of several dozen deaths in remote areas in the northwest, which suffered an earlier drought in 1975 and has had almost no rain this year. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 932.50 (+4.16, +0.45%)
S&P Composite: 99.47 (+0.44, +0.44%)
Arms Index: 0.80

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	930	12.41
Declines	530	5.68
Unchanged	454	3.08
Total Volume		21.17

* 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*
May 13, 1977	928.34	99.03	19.78
May 12, 1977	925.54	98.73	21.98
May 11, 1977	926.90	98.78	18.98
May 10, 1977	936.14	99.47	21.09
May 9, 1977	933.90	99.18	15.23
May 6, 1977	936.74	99.49	19.37
May 5, 1977	943.44	100.11	23.45
May 4, 1977	940.72	99.96	23.33
May 3, 1977	934.19	99.43	21.95
May 2, 1977	931.22	98.93	17.97