News stories from Monday July 8, 1974

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

After three hours of tense argument and persistent legal questioning, eight Justices of the Supreme Court reserved decision on two questions that could materially affect the possibility of both President Nixon's impeachment and the conviction of his former aides for concealing the Watergate burglary. The Justices heard arguments by James St. Clair, the President's defense lawyer, and Leon Jaworski, the Watergate special prosecutor. [New York Times] Secretary of State Kissinger was ordered by Judge Gerhard Gesell of the Federal District Court in Washington to appear as a defense witness at the trial of John Ehrlichman and three others charged with conspiring to violate the civil rights of Dr. Lewis Fielding, Dr. Daniel Ellsberg's former psychiatrist. Mr. Ehrlichman, who had been President Nixon's domestic affairs adviser, took the stand in his own defense and denied that he authorized the break-in of Dr. Fielding's office. [New York Times] In a decision that could lead to the refund of $500 million to importers, the United States Customs Court in New York ruled that President Nixon had exceeded his authority in 1971 when he imposed a 10 percent surcharge on all dutiable imports. [New York Times] Government sources said that President Nixon proposed in Moscow last week that both the United States and the Soviet Union limit the number of their missiles with multiple nuclear warheads and then phase out some of their land-based missiles with single warheads. The areas of disagreement, the sources said, included the questions of how many missiles with multiple warheads should be allowed, what kinds of missiles could be readily fitted with such warheads, and how many of the older land-based missiles should then be phased out. In Moscow, Soviet sources said that the proposals were rejected because "real parity" was wanted with the United States. [New York Times] Israeli naval commandos raided three ports on the coast of southern Lebanon and sunk 30 fishing boats in an effort to thwart further Arab terrorist attacks against Israel from the sea, the Israeli army said. An Arab raid on the Israeli resort town of Nahariya last month is believed to have been made by sea from southern Lebanon, and an Israeli army spokesman in Tel Aviv said there had been indications of further such raids. [New York Times] Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Liberal party were headed for an overwhelming victory in the Canadian national election. The Liberals appeared almost certain to return to power with a majority in the House of Commons after having governed with a minority for the last 20 months. [New York Times] A cabinet shake-up appears to be coming in Portugal. The coalition government has, among other things, been strained by denunciations by the Socialist and Communist parties of appointments of officials who were associated with the regime that the coalition toppled. [New York Times] Representatives of 11 major central banks of Western Europe, North America and Japan agreed in principle to provide emergency assistance to financially troubled banks wherever necessary to avert a crisis of confidence in the international banking system. They were said, at their meeting in Basel, Switzerland, to have expressed apprehension over the difficulties of certain banks -- for example the Bankhaus I.D. Herstatt of West Germany, which recently collapsed -- and they were understood to have agreed that more failures might be coming. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 770.57 (-21.20, -2.68%)
S&P Composite: 81.09 (-2.57, -3.07%)
Arms Index: 1.60

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	137	0.81
Declines	1,441	13.66
Unchanged	238	1.04
Total Volume		15.51

* 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*
July 5, 1974	791.77	83.66	7.40
July 3, 1974	792.87	84.25	13.43
July 2, 1974	790.68	84.30	13.46
July 1, 1974	806.24	86.02	10.27
June 28, 1974	802.41	86.00	12.01
June 27, 1974	803.66	86.31	12.65
June 26, 1974	816.96	87.61	11.41
June 25, 1974	828.85	88.98	11.92
June 24, 1974	816.33	87.69	9.95
June 21, 1974	815.39	87.46	11.83