News stories from Thursday January 2, 1975

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

Administration officials said that just about all of President Ford's principal economic advisers, including Secretary of the Treasury William Simon, who had supported restrictive fiscal policies, have reached virtual unanimity on the need for a tax cut as an antirecession measure. The President appears to be moving toward such a decision, they said. [New York Times] Gold prices plunged because of lack of interest by American investors and speculators. The afternoon price in London was $175 an ounce, off $11.50 from Tuesday, and prices also declined sharply in American markets and bullion sales by brokerage houses and banks were few and far between. On the nation's commodity exchanges, prices for futures contracts dropped by $7 to $9 an ounce. [New York Times] John Hoffar, the foreman of the jury in the Watergate cover-up case that decided the fate of former associates of former President Richard Nixon, shyly answered questions in an interview in his Washington home. The jury was congenial, he said, there were no dominating personalities, no significant disagreements. "We tried not to let our personal feelings get in the way and to decide it on the facts," he said. [New York Times] Former President Richard Nixon was described by an associate as "deeply anguished" by the plight of four of his former White House and political aides who were convicted in the Watergate cover-up trial. The associate, who did not want to be identified by name, said that Mr. Nixon had been advised by a lawyer against making any specific comment, because the four defendants "have stated their intention to file appeals." [New York Times] A long-awaited Vatican statement on ways to improve Roman Catholic-Jewish relations was made public. The guidelines, as they are called, were prepared by the church's Commission on Relations with Judaism to carry out the "Declaration on the Jews" issued in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council. [New York Times] Reports from Cairo that Leonid Brezhnev postponed his trip to the Middle East for reasons of health have met with widespread skepticism in Moscow's foreign diplomatic circles. The diplomats generally continue to believe that the trip was put off because of unresolved differences between Moscow and Cairo. President Anwar Sadat said in a speech that he understood the reasons for the postponement and looked forward to a new chapter in Soviet-Egyptian relations once they were resolved. [New York Times] Communist forces from North Vietnam appeared to be on the verge of overrunning the first provincial capital in South Vietnam since they took Quang Tri on May 1, 1972, nine months before the signing of the Paris agreement. The Saigon military command said North Vietnamese troops and Soviet-made tanks fought their way into Phuoc Binh, a small remote city 75 miles north of Saigon. Intense street fighting was reported. [New York Times] The Provisional Irish Republican Army announced in Dublin a 14-day extension of the Christmas truce in Ulster. This was a shorter period than had been hoped for, and the announcement was welcomed cautiously in Dublin and Northern Ireland. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 632.04 (+15.80, +2.56%)
S&P Composite: 70.23 (+1.67, +2.44%)
Arms Index: 1.32

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	1,450	12.28
Declines	159	1.78
Unchanged	194	0.74
Total Volume		14.80

* 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*
December 31, 1974	616.24	68.56	20.97
December 30, 1974	603.25	67.16	18.52
December 27, 1974	602.16	67.14	13.06
December 26, 1974	604.74	67.44	11.81
December 24, 1974	598.40	66.88	9.54
December 23, 1974	589.64	65.96	18.04
December 20, 1974	598.48	66.91	15.84
December 19, 1974	604.43	67.75	15.90
December 18, 1974	603.49	67.90	18.05
December 17, 1974	597.54	67.58	16.88