News stories from Wednesday September 28, 1977

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

The steel industry's plight worldwide will be the subject of a meeting in Paris of major industrial governments. At the meeting the Carter administration will warn European governments against their market-sharing plan because of its impact on the beleaguered American industry. Slack demand, excessive capacity and unprofitable price levels are general. [New York Times] Legionnaires' Disease, which got its name from an outbreak involving a Philadelphia convention of the American Legion last year, may be a far broader health problem than that single outbreak, on the basis of recent clusters of cases in two cities and a continuing investigation into the disease, a type of pneumonia. Federal experts at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta say it seems to be a nationwide phenomenon. [New York Times] The House ethics committee was accused by its junior member, Representative Bruce Caputo, Republican of Westchester, of a "slow and unduly narrow" investigation into alleged misconduct of congressmen in the Korean scandal. He specifically accused its special counsel, Leon Jaworski, of insufficient action. [New York Times] The White House denied a pardon to the Emprise Corporation, the sports and concessions conglomerate, for its 1972 felony conviction for helping business executives connected with the crime syndicate conceal ownership of the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev. Emprise sought clemency, an unusual move for a company, to avoid the impact of laws in several states barring felons from holding liquor licenses or operating betting establishments. [New York Times] A compromise energy proposal was offered by the Democratic leadership of the Senate in an effort to break a five-day filibuster over the deregulation of natural gas prices. It appeared to have strong chances of passage. The so-called "Jackson compromise" would continue regulation of natural as prices but at a price higher than the initial administration proposal. [New York Times] Lockheed Aircraft has won the consent of its lender banks to eliminate a 1971 federal guarantee of major bank loans, on the basis of the company's improved finances. The company also disclosed that it had a new $100 million revolving credit line to replace the much-criticized federally guaranteed $250 million line, of which only $60 million is outstanding. [New York Times] Stock prices retreated slightly in slower trading. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 834.72 points, down 1.13. The star performer was Miles Laboratories, on which trading had been suspended Monday, when it reported an acquisition offer from Bayer AG, the West German chemical concern. It soared to its highest level of the year. [New York Times] Japanese urban guerrillas holding 156 hostages on a hijacked Japanese airliner at Dacca in Bangladesh threatened to kill them one by one unless Japan delivered within 18 hours nine imprisoned comrades and a $6 million ransom. The Japanese government agreed to the terms but said it would take longer to collect and deliver the prisoners from Japanese jails. [New York Times] Somali forces control Jijiga, the strategically important town in Ethiopia, and a nearby pass cutting through the mountains into the country's central highlands. Despite Addis Ababa's claims to be holding it, the only signs of Ethiopian presence are the American-supplied tanks, military vehicles and ammunition its troops left behind. It was Somalia's biggest victory yet in the war in the Ogaden region. [New York Times] A Cambodian guest in Peking was described there as Pol Pot, secretary of the Central Committee of the Cambodian Communist Party and Prime Minister. He was received with highest honors from China's leaders. Some sources say that the shadowy figure, who is not known to have left Cambodia since the end of the Indochina war two years ago, is a man formerly known as Saloth Sar, a French-educated intellectual. [New York Times] Syria and Jordan have accepted the American proposal for a unified Arab delegation that includes Palestinians to meet with Israel at the opening of a Middle East peace conference. But in separate White House meetings with President Carter, officials of the two countries reportedly stressed their disagreement with Israel's view that after the opening it would negotiate with separate Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian delegations. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 834.72 (-1.13, -0.14%)
S&P Composite: 95.31 (+0.07, +0.07%)
Arms Index: 0.81

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	613	7.27
Declines	715	6.85
Unchanged	520	3.84
Total Volume		17.96

* 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 27, 1977	835.85	95.24	19.08
September 26, 1977	841.65	95.38	18.23
September 23, 1977	839.14	95.04	18.76
September 22, 1977	839.14	95.09	16.66
September 21, 1977	840.96	95.10	22.20
September 20, 1977	851.78	95.89	19.03
September 19, 1977	851.52	95.85	16.89
September 16, 1977	856.81	96.48	18.34
September 15, 1977	860.79	96.80	18.23
September 14, 1977	858.71	96.55	17.33