News stories from Tuesday December 9, 1975

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

President Ford signed the $2.3 billion seasonal loan authorization bill designed to prevent a default by New York City. Meanwhile the House of Representatives voted 379 to 29 to approve a revision of the municipal bankruptcy law to enable New York and other cities to petition for bankruptcy without the consent of creditors. The Senate is expected to approve this measure tomorrow and also pass a $10 billion supplemental appropriation bill including the $2.3 billion in loans to New York. [New York Times] Judge W. Arthur Garrity of Federal District Court ordered that South Boston High School be removed from the control of the Boston School Committee and placed under the direct supervision of Joseph McDonough, a school area superintendent. His unusual move followed more than a week of testimony by black students, who said they had been harassed and beaten by white students, ignored by administrators and teachers and discouraged from playing football. He also stripped the all-white School Committee of much of its control over school desegregation. [New York Times] The government charged that its plan for reorganizing the bankrupt Northeast railroads faced a massive attack from the Penn Central and three other lines and said the four companies were selling off assets designated for Conrail, the new federal railroad. The accusations came in a suit seeking injunctions against such sales filed in Special Reorganization Court in Washington by the United States Railway Association, the federal agency in charge of the plan. [New York Times] The number of individual stockholders in the United States has declined for the first time in the 23 years the New York Stock Exchange has been keeping track of the total. Its report, based on a survey of 11,400 publicly owned corporations, indicated that from 1970 to last June individual holders of common stock or mutual funds fell from 30.8 million to 25.2 million. It attributed the decline to sagging stock prices and a runaway inflation that has distorted the whole economy. [New York Times] Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Communist Party leader, charged that influential Western circles had poisoned the international atmosphere since the summit conference on European cooperation and security in Helsinki last August. Addressing the congress in Warsaw of the Polish Communist Party, he said that "imperialist reaction" is trying to smear the Soviet bloc and that the "bourgeois world" is trying to weaken its unity. In an apparent reference to China and to other Communist dissidents, he spoke of "traitors slinging mud at our community." [New York Times] Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said he had put off to January his plan to visit Moscow. He explained that the Ford administration needed more time to develop its own position in the stalled negotiations on the limitation of strategic arms and to make sure the Soviet side was ready to make needed compromises. An administration source said President Ford decided on the delay with Mr. Kissinger, apparently to avoid charges of undue haste from right-wing Republicans. [New York Times] The Lebanese government sent army commandos to separate the Christian and Moslem and leftist factions fighting for control of Beirut. In at least one area the troops reportedly came under fire from both sides. Gunmen of the Christian Phalangist Party counterattacked in some suburban areas to relieve pressure from a broad Moslem and leftist thrust into the seaside hotel district and downtown area on Monday. An unofficial estimate said 103 persons were killed in battle or murdered from Monday night to dusk today. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 824.15 (+2.52, +0.31%)
S&P Composite: 87.30 (+0.23, +0.26%)
Arms Index: 0.95

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	599	6.09
Declines	744	7.18
Unchanged	500	2.77
Total Volume		16.04

* 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 8, 1975	821.63	87.07	14.15
December 5, 1975	818.80	86.82	14.05
December 4, 1975	829.11	87.84	16.38
December 3, 1975	825.49	87.60	21.32
December 2, 1975	843.20	89.33	17.93
December 1, 1975	856.34	90.57	16.05
November 28, 1975	860.67	91.24	12.87
November 26, 1975	858.55	90.94	18.78
November 25, 1975	855.40	90.71	17.49
November 24, 1975	845.64	89.70	13.93