News stories from Friday March 4, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The unemployment rate rose only slightly in February, up from January two-tenths of a percentage point to 7.5 percent, the Labor Department said. The February figure, according to Julius Shiskin, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, probably does not reflect the maximum impact of the recent cold wave because the worst of the cold spell and its impact on employment occurred between his agency's reporting periods. [New York Times]
- The increased investment tax credit for businessmen that the House Ways and Means Committee would like to remove from the administration's economic stimulus program was given full support by President Carter's chief economic advisers at a hearing of the House Budget Committee. But other compromise provisions of the Ways and Means bill, which the House will vote on next Tuesday, were acceptable, they said. These provisions include denial of the $50-per-exemption tax rebate to families with incomes of more than $30,000 a year and a small permanent tax reduction that would help moderate to low-income families. [New York Times]
- Debts owed by consumers increased by $1.92 billion in January, the third largest monthly increase, the Federal Reserve Board said. The increase was the biggest since credit climbed $2.09 billion in February 1973, which was a record, and $1.99 billion during March 1973. Cash loans and installment credit not related to automobile loans accounted for most of the personal debt in January. [New York Times]
- Stock prices made small but steady gains, bringing the Dow Jones industrial average up 4.82 points to 953.46. The index gained 20 points during the week. [New York Times]
- President Valery Giscard d'Estaing of France telephoned President Carter to express his concern that a refusal by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey of landing rights for the British-French Concorde airliner at Kennedy International Airport could start a wave of anti-Americanism in France. A decision is expected Thursday. There is opposition to the Concorde on environmental grounds. [New York Times]
- Stock exchange trading of put options was given a long-anticipated approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission and such trading could begin June 1 on five stocks. Puts are options to sell a block of stock at a pre-determined price within a specified period. They are the opposite of call options which are sold in maturities of three, six and nine months. [New York Times]
- Hundreds of people in Bucharest were reported to have been killed in a strong earthquake that rocked Southern and Eastern Europe. The center of the Rumanian capital was said to have been nearly destroyed. The quake, which according to a witness lasted about five minutes, was centered north of Bucharest. [New York Times]
- Despite differing views on human rights, Soviet leaders still have "a continuing deep and abiding interest" in concluding further arms control and other agreements with the United States, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance said at a news conference at the State Department. [New York Times]
- Izvestia accused several leading dissidents, all Jews, of working for the Central Intelligence Agency, and it was reported by Jewish sources in Moscow that arrests were imminent. [New York Times]
- Western Europe is getting nervous about Moscow's increasingly bitter reaction to President Carter's open support of dissidents in the Soviet Union. Mr. Carter has sent a letter to Andrei Sakharov in Moscow and Vice President Mondale received Vladimir Bukovsky, an exiled Russian, in Washington, but Mr. Sakharov's friend Andrei Amalrik has been rebuffed in Bonn by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and in Paris by President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. [New York Times]
- After years of decline, British Leyland, Britain's biggest automobile manufacturer, is running no better with government bosses than it did as a private company before it was nationalized with a $450 million government subsidy 18 months ago. The Leyland cars are the Jaguar, Triumph, MG and the Rover. The government is beginning to wonder whether it made a colossal mistake whose consequences could rattle the entire economy. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 953.46 (+4.82, +0.51%)
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* |
| March 3, 1977 | 948.64 | 100.88 | 17.56 |
| March 2, 1977 | 942.07 | 100.39 | 18.01 |
| March 1, 1977 | 944.73 | 100.66 | 19.48 |
| February 28, 1977 | 936.42 | 99.82 | 16.22 |
| February 25, 1977 | 933.43 | 99.48 | 17.61 |
| February 24, 1977 | 932.60 | 99.60 | 19.73 |
| February 23, 1977 | 938.25 | 100.19 | 18.24 |
| February 22, 1977 | 939.91 | 100.49 | 17.73 |
| February 18, 1977 | 940.24 | 100.49 | 18.04 |
| February 17, 1977 | 943.73 | 100.92 | 19.04 |