News stories from Thursday December 5, 1974

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

Federal Judge John Sirica ruled that former President Richard Nixon need not testify in any way -- either on the witness stand or through deposition -- at the Watergate cover-up trial. He gave two main reasons: Mr. Nixon's poor health and the kind of testimony that Mr. Nixon could be expected to give and whose value to the defendants, Judge Sirica said in a six-page opinion, "should not be unrealistically overestimated." He noted that Mr. Nixon "has been accused, in effect, of being an accomplice of the defendants." [New York Times] Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, disagreeing with the Treasury Secretary, William Simon, told Congress that it was a mistake to permit Americans to own gold starting Dec, 31. He urged that Congress pass a pending bill to delay the date by six months, but he conceded that chances of that were slight. The diversion of funds from other investments to gold could amount "to an uncomfortably large sum," he said. [New York Times] A number of the nation's leading industrialists and businessmen interviewed prior to the annual meeting of the National Association of Manufacturers said they feared wage and price controls would be imposed by the Ford administration by the middle of next year. They said inflation and political pressures made controls increasingly likely, but made clear their opposition. [New York Times] Officers of the United Mine Workers signed a new three-year labor contract with the coal industry, officially ending a 24-day miners' strike at midnight tonight. Arnold Miller, the union's president, said that 56 percent of the 79,495 members who had exercised their new right to accept or reject their leaders' contract proposal had voted for it. [New York Times] United Airlines, in an attempt to stop one of the sharpest declines in domestic air travel since World War II, sought government approval to introduce a new cut-rate excursion plan on Feb. 1 that would reduce coach-class rates on most routes by 20 to 25 percent. Trans World Airlines announced that it would propose a similar plan March 15. [New York Times] Senior Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee reasserted their temporarily dormant power to thwart further efforts within the House to limit their authority. The House Democratic leadership, which was said by one of its members to have ordered Ways and Means Democrats to delay making committee changes until a dozen new members are seated, took the position that the incumbent committee members could do as they pleased. [New York Times] Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany and President Ford agreed at a meeting in Washington to work toward bringing France into the joint effort of the Western industrial nations to cope with the international energy crisis and accompanying financial problems. A West German spokesman said that Mr. Schmidt was attempting to "build a bridge" between the positions of France and the United States, particularly on the energy policy. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 587.11 (-11.53, -1.93%)
S&P Composite: 66.13 (-1.28, -1.90%)
Arms Index: 1.70

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	322	1.67
Declines	1,045	9.22
Unchanged	421	2.00
Total Volume		12.89

* 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 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
November 27, 1974	619.29	69.94	14.81
November 26, 1974	617.26	69.47	13.60
November 25, 1974	611.94	68.83	11.30
November 22, 1974	615.30	68.90	13.02
November 21, 1974	608.57	68.18	13.82
November 20, 1974	609.59	67.90	12.43