News stories from Tuesday December 31, 1974

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

The first day of legalization of gold bullion sales in the United States after 41 years brought only a trickle of purchases instead of the widely heralded gold rush. Prices fell $5 to $9 an ounce in various centers of the world's gold trade -- in London it dropped to $186.50 from $195.25 on Monday. The lack of activity was ascribed by some brokers to the New Year's Eve holiday or to excessive prices. Others said potential investors had been scared by warnings that gold prices fluctuate erratically. [New York Times] On his final day as a Senator, J. W. Fulbright told an interviewer that the country might be facing its greatest peril since 1942, when he arrived in Washington as a Representative. He expressed concern that the energy crisis might impel many to urge seizing Persian Gulf oilfields and said that any such move would be "another disaster" like the country's involvement in Vietnam. In retrospect, he said the government's "finest hour" may have been President Eisenhower's decision in 1954 not to send units to aid the French at Dien Bien Phu. [New York Times] Government sources said that the report to President Ford from William Colby, Director of Central Intelligence, in response to the Dec. 22 New York Times allegations of domestic spying, told of thousands of files on American citizens. It also told of electronic surveillances, break-ins and mail inspection. But the sources said the report seemed limited to areas of wrongdoing outlined in the original New York Times account of these activities. [New York Times] The jury in the Watergate cover-up trial will resume its deliberations this morning. It spent much of its time listening to White House tape recordings of four conversations in which H R. Haldeman, one of the defendants, participated. [New York Times] The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company admitted that it kept a $634,000 political slush fund from which it made illegal campaign contributions between 1963 and 1973. It also acknowledged that it faced a grand jury investigation for income tax evasion and that back taxes and penalties could reach $11 million. [New York Times] Diplomatic sources in Cairo said that illness, not a rift in relations, caused the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, to postpone his visit to the Middle East. The sources disclosed that he received his Egyptian visitors in a sanatorium outside Moscow. Egypt's foreign and defense ministers returned to Cairo and were immediately received by President Anwar Sadat. The report appeared to eliminate the theory that the postponement was part of a new Soviet-United States crisis. [New York Times] Hopes for extending the holiday cease-fire in Northern Ireland, called nine days ago by the Irish Republican Army, rose with a British announcement of release of a number of political prisoners. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said that if the halt in violence was made permanent, there would be a gradual release of all detainees and a steady reduction in army activity. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 616.24 (+12.99, +2.15%)
S&P Composite: 68.56 (+1.40, +2.08%)
Arms Index: 0.51

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	1,259	16.58
Declines	304	2.06
Unchanged	322	2.33
Total Volume		20.97

* 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 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
December 16, 1974	586.83	66.46	15.37