News stories from Wednesday January 15, 1975

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

President Ford, declaring that "the state of the union is not good," urged the Democratic Congress to enact speedily his new plan for stimulating the economy and to approve a sweeping program aimed at achieving energy independence. He also asked Congress to refrain from tying his hands in the conduct of foreign policy. It was the gloomiest State of the Union Message delivered by a President since the Great Depression of the 1930s in terms of his description of the domestic scene. [New York Times] The administration said it expected the budget deficit to go as high as $34 billion this fiscal year and $47 billion in fiscal year 1976, assuming that Congress enacted the entire Ford economic program. It appeared almost certain the deficits would go considerably higher, however, because the program included some proposed restraints on spending that Congress seemed determined to set aside. [New York Times] The President proposed a many-sided plan to achieve national independence in energy, with higher energy prices for all consumers as its central feature. He held out the prospect that the plan would move the country toward becoming an important exporter of energy and energy technology by the end of the century. [New York Times] Influential Senators and House members were sharply critical of many of the President's proposals to conserve energy and invigorate the economy, and there appeared to be little chance that the proposals would be approved intact. Among those objecting were members of Congress from the oil-producing and oil-consuming states, as well as liberals who would limit tax rebates to persons with low incomes and conservatives who objected to budget deficits. [New York Times] The nation got encouraging news on the inflation front when the wholesale price index for December after seasonal adjustment declined by half of 1 percent -- the first drop since October, 1973. But deepening recession was strongly confirmed when the Federal Reserve Board showed a huge 2.8 percent drop that month in industrial production, the largest since August, 1959. [New York Times] President Ford blamed Congress for the breakdown in efforts to exchange American trade benefits for liberalized Soviet emigration practices. He said it showed that well-intended legislative restrictions could have the opposite results. Henry Jackson, the Washington Democrat, and other key Senators joined Jewish organizations in putting prime responsibility for the collapse of the trade agreement on the Soviet Union. [New York Times] William Colby, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, publicly acknowledged that it had infiltrated agents into antiwar and dissident political groups within the United States as part of a counterintelligence program started in 1967. He said it had led to the accumulation of files on 10,000 American citizens. But in his statement, released after he appeared before a Senate subcommittee on intelligence, he denied an allegation in The New York Times that the agency engaged in a "massive, illegal, domestic intelligence operation." [New York Times] The 24-member Democratic Steering and Policy Committee in the House voted to unseat Representative Wright Patman of Texas as chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee and Representative Wayne Hays of Ohio as chairman of the Administration Committee in a stunning victory for reformers over the House seniority system. The decision must be ratified by the full Democratic caucus today. [New York Times] The Portuguese government and representatives of three rival movements for the liberation of Angola signed an agreement at Alvor in Portugal granting independence next Nov. 11. The accord virtually liquidating the last colonial empire was designed to maintain peace in the rich African territory during the 10-month transition. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 653.39 (+4.69, +0.72%)
S&P Composite: 72.14 (+0.46, +0.64%)
Arms Index: 0.67

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	806	9.70
Declines	601	4.85
Unchanged	372	2.03
Total Volume		16.58

* 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*
January 14, 1975	648.70	71.68	16.61
January 13, 1975	654.18	72.31	19.78
January 10, 1975	658.79	72.61	25.89
January 9, 1975	645.26	71.17	16.34
January 8, 1975	635.40	70.04	15.60
January 7, 1975	641.19	71.02	14.33
January 6, 1975	637.20	71.07	17.55
January 3, 1975	634.54	70.71	15.27
January 2, 1975	632.04	70.23	14.80
December 31, 1974	616.24	68.56	20.97