News stories from Thursday March 20, 1975

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

The evacuation of Hue and many other areas in the northern part of South Vietnam is being rushed to completion despite a public pledge by President Nguyen Van Thieu to hold the line against further large Communist advances. The evacuation of civilians from Hue south to Da Nang was reported to be nearly complete. [New York Times] Hundreds of refugees, bloody and terrified -- some of the many thousands fleeing the Central Highlands of South Vietnam -- arrived in Tuy Hoa, a coastal city, and told of North Vietnamese rocket and artillery attacks against the civilian and army flight. Estimates of the number of refugees range up to 500,000. [New York Times] United States military experts regard the Saigon areas as the critical battlefield. The military situation there, as they view it, is becoming a race between South Vietnam's ability to deploy four regular divisions and increasing pressures from Communist attacks to the northwest, northeast and east. The speed and force of the North Vietnamese advances, the Americans say, may prevent the establishment of a coherent defense for the Saigon enclave. [New York Times] The major oil-consuming countries agreed at a meeting in Paris on an American-inspired concept of keeping oil prices high enough to encourage the development of alternative sources of energy. The agreement, by the 18-nation International Energy Agency, apparently opens the way for participation by the United States in a preliminary meeting of oil producers and consumers scheduled in Paris on April 7. [New York Times] The Labor Department reported that consumer price inflation continued in February at the somewhat reduced rate that prevailed in January, even though food prices were nearly stable. The Consumer Price Index rose six-tenths of 1 percent last month, after adjustment for normal seasonal changes in some prices, and reflected higher charges for services and goods, principally medical care and utility bills, rather than food. [New York Times] The Senate scrapped all the work it had done on the tax bill and voted to start over again with a somewhat larger antirecession package, including a $100 special cash payment to every recipient of Social Security, railroad retirement or federal welfare benefits. It also approved a different version of the repeal of the 22 percent oil-depletion allowance, which would terminate the allowance for more companies than the plan the Senate approved last Tuesday. [New York Times] The electronics industry has developed a miniature device that is reportedly able to reduce the gasoline consumption of automobiles markedly and thus be a major factor in helping to realize the government's energy conservation goals. The device, which is still in the testing stage, was also said to have other fuel-saving applications. The device is called a microprocessor. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 764.00 (-5.48, -0.71%)
S&P Composite: 83.61 (-0.73, -0.87%)
Arms Index: 0.95

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	579	7.88
Declines	790	10.24
Unchanged	399	2.83
Total Volume		20.95

* 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*
March 19, 1975	769.48	84.34	19.03
March 18, 1975	779.41	85.13	29.16
March 17, 1975	786.53	86.01	26.78
March 14, 1975	773.47	84.76	24.84
March 13, 1975	762.98	83.74	18.62
March 12, 1975	763.69	83.59	21.56
March 11, 1975	770.89	84.36	31.28
March 10, 1975	776.13	84.95	25.89
March 7, 1975	770.10	84.30	25.93
March 6, 1975	761.81	83.69	21.78