News stories from Thursday January 22, 1976

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

In an interview at the White House with seven New Hampshire newspaper editors and reporters, President Ford discussed the Republicans he would consider as a running mate in his election campaign. In Mr. Ford's view, the possible candidates tor Vice President are Elliot Richardson, the Commerce Secretary-designate, and four Senators and three Governors. Among the Senators he described as "fully qualified" was Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. The New Hampshire newspapermen, a presidential aide said, were invited to the White House in an attempt to establish their support for Mr. Ford when opinion samplers begin polling that state today. Mr. Ford later made the expected announcement of his nomination of W. K. Usery Jr., director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, to succeed John Dunlop as Secretary of Labor. [New York Times] Following a month-long study in which 40 of its representatives traveled throughout the country and to most major foreign countries that buy American grain, the General Accounting Office will reportedly recommend to Congress that federal inspectors be solely in charge of grain inspection. The G.A.O. is also expected to urge a complete reform of the inspection system to prevent scandals of the kind recently uncovered in an investigation of corruption in the grain industry. The proposed federal control would replace the present system, in which grain is inspected either by privately employed inspectors licensed by the Agriculture Department or by inspectors working for state agencies, with their work spot-checked by federal inspectors. [New York Times] A political and military agreement, underwritten by Syria to bring an end to Lebanon's civil war, was announced today in Beirut while fighting continued in many parts of the country. For the first time since the conflict broke out in April, the office of President Suleiman Franjieh announced that "all parties" had agreed to an "all-embracing political settlement" that appeared to grant some Moslem demands for a greater share of political power, while preserving the position of Lebanon's Christian community, now in the minority. [New York Times] At the completion of their talks in Moscow, an American official said that the United States and the Soviet Union had achieved "a considerable degree of progress" toward resolving the issues that have delayed completion of a new arms control accord that would set limits on each country's long-range missiles and bombers. But the official acknowledged to newsmen that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did not achieve his maximum goal, which was an agreement in principle on all outstanding issues. [New York Times] Italy sought loans from the International Monetary Fund, the United States and West Germany to help save the sinking lira. It was hoped that $1.25 billion could be raised from the three sources to ease speculation and to generate confidence in the currency. The official foreign exchange market was closed in Italy because of what the government said was unacceptable pressure. Italy's political stalemate and the prospects of elections this year are believed to have helped put the lira under pressure. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 943.48 (-2.76, -0.29%)
S&P Composite: 98.04 (-0.20, -0.20%)
Arms Index: 0.89

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	751	12.88
Declines	688	10.56
Unchanged	428	3.98
Total Volume		27.42

* 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 21, 1976	946.24	98.24	34.47
January 20, 1976	949.86	98.86	36.69
January 19, 1976	943.72	98.32	29.45
January 16, 1976	929.63	97.00	25.94
January 15, 1976	924.51	96.61	38.45
January 14, 1976	929.63	97.13	30.34
January 13, 1976	912.94	95.57	34.53
January 12, 1976	922.39	96.33	30.44
January 9, 1976	911.13	94.95	26.51
January 8, 1976	907.98	94.58	29.03