News stories from Friday September 9, 1977

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

Bert Lance may have backdated $196,426 in checks this year so that he could improperly take a tax deduction for last year, Senator Charles Percy suggested. Mr. Percy, Republican of Illinois, is the ranking minority member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigating Mr. Lance's financial affairs. He said it was also possible that Mr. Lance wrote the checks when he had less than $28,000 in two Georgia checking accounts on Dec. 31, 1976, when the checks were dated.A report on Mr. Lance with potentially embarrassing and derogatory information uncovered when his nomination as budget director was being considered never reached the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Senate Government Affairs Committee, according to a report of an Internal Revenue Service inspection. The report relates how on some occasions Mr. Lance's representatives seemed to try to minimize his problems and how some of the time government officials appeared to do the same. [New York Times] A 1978 federal budget of $459.2 billion was approved by the Senate after it had rejected Republican efforts to provide for an across-the-board tax cut. The Senate, however, approved an amendment by Senator William Roth, a Delaware Republican, that would provide a special tax credit for college tuition. [New York Times] A substantially weaker bill for conversion to the use of coal -- the first part of President Carter's energy program -- was approved by the Senate, 74 to 8. There was uncertainty over whether the bill would be effective in encouraging industrial and utility concerns to use abundant coal for fuel rather than oil and natural gas. The bill eliminates the requirement, proposed by the President and approved by the House, that industry convert to coal. It prohibits only the use of natural gas by existing power plants after 1990. [New York Times] Stock prices fell sharply in the biggest single-day tumble in six weeks. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 11.09 points to 857.07, its low for the session. Its total loss for the week was 15.24 points. The market's weakness, analysts said, was caused by an unexpected $3 billion surge in the nation's weekly money supply and the possibility of another interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve. [New York Times] Major American copper companies are cutting back or closing down mining operations in an attempt to cut costs and reduce inventories. Prices are so low that producers are believed to be losing as much as 10 to 15 cents on every pound of copper sold. Kennecott announced that it was eliminating 10 percent of the more than 10,000 jobs in four mining divisions. Duval, a subsidiary of Pennzoil, will close two of its four production plants. [New York Times] Buffalo's Democrats nominated Assemblyman Arthur Eve, a militant civil rights leader, for Mayor in an upset. He is the first black nominated for Mayor of Buffalo by either party. He had not been given more than an outside chance of winning by pollsters and political experts. He defeated Senator James Griffin and Leslie Foschio, Corporation Counsel and the Democratic organization's candidate. [New York Times] A $256 New York-London roundtrip fare for "standby" passengers was approved by the Civil Aeronautics Board to enable airlines to compete with the British Laker Airways $236 no-frills fare. The board refused to allow competitors to set a reserved-seat budget fare unless they raised it to about $280. It flatly rejected a plan for a "super-Apex" fare that would have cut the 22- to 45-day excursion fare from $350 to $299. [New York Times] Breaking a longstanding policy, the Carter administration will allow four Soviet trade unionists to visit the United States despite the opposition of the strongly anti-Communist A.F.L.-C.I.O. The Russians were invited by a Chicago-based organization known as Trade Union for Action and Democracy. They will arrive Tuesday and will spend two weeks visiting Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and New York. [New York Times] Fifteen men died in Uganda before a firing squad. They were teachers, businessmen and former government officials. Twelve were convicted of having plotted to overthrow President Idi Amin in January. One was convicted of treason, and two were convicted of murder charges. President Amin ignored pleas of Islamic leaders to call off the executions. [New York Times] The trial of eight Moluccans who seized a train and a school in the Netherlands in May ended. The defendants neither denied their guilt nor entered a plea. The verdict is expected to be announced on Sept. 22. Seven of the defendants face a maximum prison term of 10 years. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 857.07 (-11.09, -1.28%)
S&P Composite: 96.37 (-0.91, -0.94%)
Arms Index: 1.90

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	388	2.55
Declines	1,032	12.92
Unchanged	461	2.63
Total Volume		18.10

* 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*
September 8, 1977	868.16	97.28	18.29
September 7, 1977	876.39	98.01	18.07
September 6, 1977	873.27	97.71	16.13
September 2, 1977	872.31	97.45	15.62
September 1, 1977	864.86	96.83	18.82
August 31, 1977	861.49	96.77	19.08
August 30, 1977	858.89	96.38	18.22
August 29, 1977	864.09	96.92	15.28
August 26, 1977	855.42	96.09	18.48
August 25, 1977	854.12	96.15	19.40