News stories from Monday December 20, 1976
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel resigned and immediately started a campaign for re-election. He lost his government's slim majority Sunday when he ousted the National Religious Party from his coalition. He brought the government down himself when it became apparent that the opposition could do it. He will head a caretaker government until elections, originally scheduled for next November, are held in May or June. [New York Times]
- Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, one of the country's most powerful Democratic politicians, died of a heart attack. He was stricken on his way to lunch after a busy morning. Mayor Daley was 74 years old and was in the second year of his sixth four-year term. Alderman Wilson Frost, president pro-tem of the City Council, will serve as mayor until the council holds a special meeting to elect an acting mayor from among the aldermen. [New York Times]
- President-elect Carter named a long-time friend, Griffin Bell, to be Attorney General, and selected two other cabinet officers, including his first woman appointee. Mr. Carter was also expected to announce tomorrow his selection of Harold Brown, president of the California Institute of Technology, to be Secretary of Defense, and Ray Marshall, a University of Texas economist, to be Secretary of Labor, sources in the Carter camp said. [New York Times]
- The price increases announced last week by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will sharply reduce the demand for OPEC oil and may prevent a growth in its revenues, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. The agency, which has access to confidential data of Western oil companies, said the demand for OPEC oil would fall off because of anticipatory buying by oil companies in advance of the price announcement in Qatar. [New York Times]
- Christmas shopping, which has been sluggish, was picking up across the country and retailers predicted modest sales increases over 1975. Gains in sales of 2 to 10 percent were anticipated for this year's 29-day shopping period over last year's 27 days. Sunday openings in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states were a factor in projected increases. [New York Times]
- Stock prices, despite some favorable economic news, closed lower in less active trading. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 6.65 points to 972.41, the low for the day. Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones almost 2 to 1. Credit markets, which had rallied sharply Friday when the Federal Reserve reduced bank reserve requirements, continued to advance and then fell back. The Treasury in the meantime sold $3 billion of two-year notes at an average interest rate of 5.37 percent, almost half a point lower than the rate in a similar sale a month ago. [New York Times]
- New supplies of Algerian natural gas would be distributed through a 498-mile-long pipeline across New England that a subsidiary of Tenneco Inc. wants to construct. The Tenneco Atlantic Pipeline Company formally applied to the Federal Power Commission for a construction permit. [New York Times]
- "Armed struggle" on behalf of independence was endorsed for the first time by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which adopted a resolution upholding South-West Africa's attempts to be independent of South Africa. The vote was 107 to 6. The United States opposed the resolution. [New York Times]
- The canonization of an American bishop, John Neumann, was formally approved by a consistory of 34 Cardinals in Rome, with Pope Paul VI presiding. Bishop Neumann, who worked for some years among immigrants in upper New York state, was Bishop of Philadelphia from 1852 until his death in 1860 at the age of 48. He will be America's third saint, and this country's first male to be elevated to sainthood. The canonization ceremonies will be held in Rome on June 16. [New York Times]
- Letters and poems by Byron and Shelley were among 19th-century literary papers found in a trunk stored at Barclays Bank on Pall Mall Street in London. The papers were described as "literary find of incredible proportions and quite astonishing," by a manuscript expert in London. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 972.41 (-6.65, -0.68%)
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 17, 1976 | 979.06 | 104.26 | 23.87 |
| December 16, 1976 | 981.30 | 104.80 | 23.92 |
| December 15, 1976 | 983.79 | 105.14 | 28.30 |
| December 14, 1976 | 980.63 | 105.07 | 25.13 |
| December 13, 1976 | 974.24 | 104.63 | 24.83 |
| December 10, 1976 | 973.15 | 104.70 | 25.96 |
| December 9, 1976 | 970.74 | 104.51 | 31.80 |
| December 8, 1976 | 963.26 | 104.08 | 24.56 |
| December 7, 1976 | 960.69 | 103.49 | 26.14 |
| December 6, 1976 | 961.77 | 103.56 | 24.83 |