News stories from Monday December 16, 1974

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

President Ford and President Valery Giscard d'Estaing of France announced in a communique at the end of their two days of talks in Martinique that they had reached a compromise agreement to coordinate their energy policies. Under the agreement, the United States will take part in a French-proposed conference of oil-producing nations, major oil importers and probably developing countries in an effort to bring order to the world market. [New York Times] Administration officials in Washington doubt seriously that the United States will be able to make good its offer to provide Egypt and Israel with large atomic power plants because of Israel's lack of interest. She has informed Washington that she is not interested in an atomic plant at this time. The officials believe the reason is Israel's reservations about placing her atomic facilities under international inspection. [New York Times] Congress finally resolved its four-month battle over school desegregation when the House followed the Senate and nullified an anti-busing amendment to an education appropriations bill and sent the measure on to President Ford.The Boston School Committee, defying a federal court order, refused to approve a new city-wide school busing plan that was scheduled to take effect next fall. A few minutes before the plan was to have been submitted to federal Judge Arthur Garrity, members of the committee denounced the current court-ordered busing plan as having brought bloodshed and racial hatred to the city and voted 3 to 2 not to approve the plan that had been prepared by the committee's staff. [New York Times] For the second time this year, and for the third time in New Jersey's legislative history, the Senate Democratic majority rejected a state income tax. This appeared to kill any hope of the legislature approving a new system of financing public schools by Dec. 31, a deadline set by the state Supreme Court. [New York Times] The Supreme Court, voting 7 to 2, upheld the 1973 railroad reorganization plan that Congress enacted to rescue eight bankrupt carriers in the Northeast and Middle West and merge them into a single private self-sustaining system. The decision overruled a three-judge special federal panel, which had found that parts of the reorganization plan unconstitutional. [New York Times] "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano," which will be published in January, has already earned more than $1 million. The book's success is based on the assertion that it is the life story of Lucky Luciano as dictated by the Mafia boss himself. However, an examination of the book, research of papers and documents relating to the gangster and numerous interviews have produced information that questions the publisher's assertion. [New York Times] Reliable sources in Rhodesia said that Prime Minister John Vorster of South Africa has suggested a plan to settle the prolonged Rhodesian crisis that, if carried out, would appear certain to bring black rule to Rhodesia within a few years. In the meantime, the plan would give blacks a powerful voice in an interim Parliament elected next year, the sources said. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 586.83 (-5.94, -1.00%)
S&P Composite: 66.46 (-0.61, -0.91%)
Arms Index: 1.54

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	489	3.35
Declines	862	9.10
Unchanged	491	2.92
Total Volume		15.37

* 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 13, 1974	592.77	67.07	14.00
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