News stories from Friday September 6, 1974

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

The Labor Department reported that unemployment rose slightly in August and that the increase, combined with a similarly small one in July, left little doubt that unemployment had moved to a higher level than the one that prevailed during the first six months of 1974. The jobless rate in August was 5.4 percent of the total work force, and was the highest since October, 1972, when the rate was 5.5 percent. [New York Times] The Ford administration's two top economic officials expressed opposition to suggestions made by some economists at the White House meeting on inflation Thursday that the nation's money supply should be expanded. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the President's Council Of Economic Advisers, told newsmen that easing of the tight money policy would not help fight inflation. Treasury Secretary William Simon said he supported continued restraints on the money supply. [New York Times] Governors and lottery officials of the 13 states that run lotteries were assured by Attorney General William Saxbe, who believes that lotteries violate federal anti-gambling laws, that there was no present danger of prosecution of lottery ticket buyers, state agencies or private concerns involved in lotteries. Mr. Saxbe said, however, that he would seek an injunction against lotteries if Congress did not clarify the gambling laws within 90 days. The state officials unanimously protested the Attorney General's proposed action. [New York Times] Portugal and the guerrilla movement of Mozambique will sign an independence agreement tomorrow. It will end Portugal's 400-year-old sovereignty over the East African territory and will mark the end of a 10-year guerrilla war against the Portuguese. [New York Times] Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have joined other Arab countries seeking investments for the rapidly growing accumulation of funds arising from the recent quadrupling of oil prices. Kuwait offered to pay the equivalent of $246 million for a British commercial real estate company in what may be the largest Arab investment disclosed so far in the West. It proposes to buy all of the shares of the St. Martin's Property Corporation's real estate holdings, which are concentrated in London's financial district and extend to Europe and Australia. [New York Times] Saudi Arabia has decided to purchase several billion dollars of a special bond issue of the United States Treasury, government financial sources said. An American diplomatic source speculated that the amount and timing of the bond purchase would be geared to progress toward a political settlement between the Arabs and Israel. [New York Times] Colombia, Costa Rica and Venezuela have joined the growing Latin American movement against political and economic sanctions against Cuba. They proposed to the Organization of American States that the sanctions imposed 10 years ago be removed. The sanctions were sought by the United States in response to what it saw as subversive activities in O.A.S. countries, sponsored by Havana. [New York Times] Because of "the increasingly repressive measures" of President Park Chung Hee's government, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee proposed that American military aid to South Korea be sharply reduced now and cut off completely by 1977. If upheld by the full Senate and the House, the committee's proposal would set back severely the planned modernization program for the South Korean armed forces. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 677.88 (+7.12, +1.06%)
S&P Composite: 71.42 (+0.55, +0.78%)
Arms Index: 1.07

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	957	8.89
Declines	457	4.54
Unchanged	368	1.70
Total Volume		15.13

* 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 5, 1974	670.76	70.87	14.21
September 4, 1974	648.00	68.72	16.93
September 3, 1974	663.33	70.52	12.75
August 30, 1974	678.58	72.15	16.23
August 29, 1974	656.84	69.99	13.69
August 28, 1974	666.61	70.76	16.67
August 27, 1974	671.54	70.94	12.97
August 26, 1974	688.13	72.16	14.63
August 23, 1974	686.80	71.55	13.59
August 22, 1974	704.63	72.80	15.69