News stories from Thursday September 8, 1977

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

A battle over the ratification of the Panama Canal treaties began in Congress, with leaders of both parties in the Senate and House taking sides. The legislative struggle is certain to be long and rancorous. Ratification would require 67 Senate votes. A Democratic senator said, "Right now you can't count 34 votes against the treaties, but neither can you count 67 for them." [New York Times] Bert Lance and his family were accused by the Comptroller of the Currency of abusing their influential positions in a Georgia bank by overdrawing their accounts for "personal gain." Comptroller John Heimann, at a hearing of the Senate Govern-mental Affairs Committee, was more critical of Mr. Lance than he had been in his Aug. 18 report. He also characterized Mr. Lance's management of the family-controlled Calhoun First National Bank as "faulty," saying that his "attention to detail left something to be desired." [New York Times] South Korea will not accede to the American demand for an early return of Tongsun Park to the United States, Foreign Minister Park Tong Jin told South Korean reporters that it was up to Mr. Park to decide whether to go to Washington, where he has been indicted on charges of attempting to bribe members of Congress, to testify at a Justice Department hearing. The Foreign Minister had previously indicated that his government was cooperating with American officials. [New York Times] An agreement on a pipeline to carry Alaskan natural gas across Canada to the United States was announced in Washington by President Carter and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The trans-Canada pipeline, known as the Alcan project, was an alternative to an "all-American route" that would have carried the gas from Alaska by tanker. [New York Times] A plan to bar oil companies from acquiring any more of the nation's coal and uranium reserves was rejected by the Senate, by 62 to 30. The measure was an amendment attached by Senator Edward Kennedy to one of the five bills that make up the Senate's version of the administration's national energy package, The amendment's defeat was seen as a strong signal that Congress would probably not come to grips this session with the issue of barring oil companies from competing energy businesses. [New York Times] Stock prices dropped sharply in anticipation of another credit-tightening move by the Federal Reserve. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 8.23 points, finishing at 868.16. Glamour issues and basic industrial stocks in chemicals, steel and aluminum, which had been doing well, declined. [New York Times] Representative Edward Koch and Mario Cuomo, New York's Secretary of State, led a field of seven Democratic contenders in New York City's mayoral primary and qualified for the Sept. 19 two-way runoff. Mayor Beame, running third, conceded shortly before 2 A.M. in a brief and sometimes emotional speech. Bella Abzug, who had run fourth, conceded at about midnight.State Senator Roy Goodman, the Republican organization candidate, won the party's nomination for Mayor of New York City. He will, however, have to campaign three more months against Barry Farber, the Conservative Party candidate, who got the vote of about four of every 10 Republicans. [New York Times] The New York State Police were charged by the Justice Department in a civil suit with illegally discriminating against women, blacks and persons with Spanish surnames and asked a federal court to order the police to recruit and hire from these groups. The department also asked the court to issue an order blocking the appointment of troopers unless at least 40 percent were black or Spanish-surnamed and at least 20 percent were women. [New York Times] Zero Mostel, the actor, died at a Philadelphia hospital where he was being treated for an upper respiratory disorder. He was 62 years old. He was in Philadelphia for a pre-Broadway performance of Arnold Wesker's new play, "The Merchant." The opening was postponed when Mr. Mostel entered the hospital last weekend. [New York Times] France's promise to sell a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant to Pakistan is apparently irrevocable despite the strong opposition of the United States and some of its allies. Foreign Minister Louis de Guiringaud, who completed talks in Paris with Agha Shahi, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, said he had confirmed that France would honor the contract. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 868.16 (-8.23, -0.94%)
S&P Composite: 97.28 (-0.73, -0.74%)
Arms Index: 1.57

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	534	4.31
Declines	849	10.78
Unchanged	507	3.20
Total Volume		18.29

* 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*
September 7, 1977	876.39	98.01	18.07
September 6, 1977	873.27	97.71	16.13
September 2, 1977	872.31	97.45	15.62
September 1, 1977	864.86	96.83	18.82
August 31, 1977	861.49	96.77	19.08
August 30, 1977	858.89	96.38	18.22
August 29, 1977	864.09	96.92	15.28
August 26, 1977	855.42	96.09	18.48
August 25, 1977	854.12	96.15	19.40
August 24, 1977	862.87	97.23	18.17