News stories from Wednesday July 28, 1976

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

Clarke Reed, the influential chairman of the Mississippi delegation to the Republican National Convention, gave his "personal" endorsement of President Ford's, candidacy. He said this was the direct result of Ronald Reagan's designation of a liberal, Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania, as his prospective running mate. Mr. Reed said Mr. Ford has assured him personally that he would choose someone personally and philosophically compatible with himself and the party's mainstream. [New York Times] The General Motors Company reported the second highest quarterly earnings in American business history-- $909 million, or $3.16 a share, for the three months that ended June 30. It was exceeded only by the $939.7 million profit reported by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in its March-May quarter this year. The report indicated strongly that the auto industry continues to lead the nation's sustained economic recovery. [New York Times] A Federal Bureau of Investigation agent has testified that while assigned to Manhattan he took part in 50 to 90 burglaries of the Socialist Workers Party headquarters between 1958 and 1965. George Baxtrum's deposition of last June was made public in Washington. He said he had been told each burglary was authorized by F.B.I. headquarters and that he had received commendation for what he found. [New York Times] The Viking 1 robot's arm has scooped up some fine-grained dirt from the planet Mars and poured it into its automated biological laboratories. Project officials said the soil reached all three biology experiments and an inorganic chemical analyzer but apparently missed the instrument for detecting organic material. It may take several days to pinpoint the problem. [New York Times] A powerful earthquake shook Peking before dawn, cracking walls, smashing windows and sending thousands of people rushing into the streets. A Chinese government spokesman said the quake centered 90 miles southeast of Peking near Tientsin and measured 7.3 on the Richter scale. The earth tremors lasting about two minutes were felt throughout Hopeh province. In Golden, Colo., the United States Geological Survey gave nearly the same place as the epicenter of the quake but measured its intensity at 8.2 on the Richter scale, making it the world's most powerful shock in 12 years.A second .powerful earthquake struck northeast China 16 hours after the first. The Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee said they had "caused great losses to people's lives and property," according to a broadcast monitored in Hong Kong. The message to people in the stricken area added that Tangshan, an industrial city of 1 million about 100 miles southeast of Peking, suffered "extremely serious damage and losses." A group of French survivors from the stricken area said that Tangshan had been "ruined totally, 100 percent." [New York Times] The British government broke diplomatic relations with the Uganda government of Idi Amin. Foreign Secretary Anthony Crosland told the House of Commons he hoped the move would only be temporary. The culmination of four years of growing tension was Uganda's failure to explain the disappearance and presumed death of Dora Bloch, a British passport holder who was among the hostages left behind after Israel's July 4 raid on Entebbe Airport. It was Britain's first break with a Commonwealth land. [New York Times] Yves Saint Laurent presented in Paris a fall couture collection that is likely to change the course of fashion around the world. The look is vaguely peasant, but akin in feeling to the Edwardian collection shown by Christian Dior in 1947 that came to be known as the New Look. There is similarity in the big, puffy sleeves, bouffant skirts and petticoats. The Saint Laurent collection is wildly colorful, combining many brilliant colors in the same dress. The fabrics are crisp taffetas and satin. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 981.33 (-2.80, -0.28%)
S&P Composite: 103.05 (-0.43, -0.42%)
Arms Index: 0.99

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	456	4.58
Declines	922	9.19
Unchanged	477	2.23
Total Volume		16.00

* 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*
July 27, 1976	984.13	103.48	15.58
July 26, 1976	991.51	104.07	13.53
July 23, 1976	990.91	104.06	15.87
July 22, 1976	991.08	103.93	15.60
July 21, 1976	989.44	103.82	18.35
July 20, 1976	988.29	103.72	18.61
July 19, 1976	990.83	104.29	18.20
July 16, 1976	993.21	104.68	20.45
July 15, 1976	997.46	105.20	20.40
July 14, 1976	1005.16	105.95	23.84