News stories from Friday December 13, 1974

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

The leading petroleum-exporting countries said in Vienna that they were stabilizing world oil prices for the next nine months at about the existing Persian Gulf level. This level is about 38 cents a barrel above prices set at the September meeting of the 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, but appeared to be little changed from the prices set in November in Abu Dhabi by Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. [New York Times] Elliot Richardson, who resigned as Attorney General 14 months ago during Richard Nixon's "Saturday night massacre", will be the new United States Ambassador to Britain, succeeding Walter Annenberg, who has served since 1969. Mr. Richardson's acceptance of the ambassadorship became known in Washington as the White House formally announced that Attorney General William Saxbe had resigned to accept the nomination as Ambassador to India, replacing Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who will return to Harvard. [New York Times] Despite the promise of a veto by President Ford, the House, with support well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, gave final approval to the strip-mining reform bill that would curb strip mining's most flagrant environmental abuses. The Senate is expected to give the bill its final approval by Monday, probably with a veto-overriding majority. [New York Times] The Senate, voting 77 to 4, approved the administration's sweeping foreign trade bill after adopting a provision authorizing trade concessions for the Soviet Union in return for freer Soviet emigration policies, particularly as they affect Jews. The bill, which has been in Congress for 20 months, prepares the way for major new international trade negotiations planned for next year. [New York Times] The United States, in a major policy decision, announced that it would establish an economic aid program for the new government in Portugal as "a positive demonstration of United States support and confidence in Portugal's future." The aid will be general, embracing housing, agriculture, transportation, public administration, education, health and Portugal's economy, including financial aspects. The announcement signified an apparent change in Secretary of State Kissinger's views about aiding the Lisbon government. He reportedly had been extremely cautious because a Communist had become a member of the government. [New York Times] Dr. Hans Bethe of Cornell University, a Nobel prize physicist well known for pioneering studies of the thermonuclear reactions that produce the sun's energy, believes that Americans must combat their dependence on foreign sources of energy with an all-out drive to build nuclear power plants and to double coal production within 10 years. He said that in energy supplies Americans were "far worse off today than we were a year ago." [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 592.77 (-3.60, -0.60%)
S&P Composite: 67.07 (-0.38, -0.56%)
Arms Index: 1.03

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	495	4.14
Declines	820	7.07
Unchanged	495	2.79
Total Volume		14.00

* 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 12, 1974	596.37	67.45	15.39
December 11, 1974	595.35	67.67	15.70
December 10, 1974	593.87	67.28	15.69
December 9, 1974	579.94	65.60	14.66
December 6, 1974	577.60	65.01	15.50
December 5, 1974	587.11	66.13	12.89
December 4, 1974	598.64	67.41	12.58
December 3, 1974	596.61	67.17	13.62
December 2, 1974	603.02	68.11	11.14
November 29, 1974	618.66	69.97	7.40