News stories from Tuesday May 3, 1977

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

A memorandum to Jimmy Carter last December from Patrick Caddell, his campaign pollster, urged the President-elect to emphasize style over substance and build a new coalition of support. It predicted that. Mr. Carter's 1980 re-election prospects would be jeopardized more by Democrats than by Republicans, with Gov. Jerry Brown of California a possible threat. [New York Times] A division between President Carter and Democratic leaders in Congress appeared at a White House meeting on legislative priorities. The deepening split was both political and philosophical. The desire of the leaders for social programs goes against Mr. Carter's top priority for a balanced budget. [New York Times] President Carter asked for a new ethics law to set "far-reaching safeguards against conflicts of interest and abuse of the public trust by government officials." In a special message to Congress he also said that he would support pending legislation authorizing appointment by federal judges of temporary special prosecutors to act on any misconduct by high-ranking executive branch officials, including the holder of the presidency. [New York Times] The Senate Energy Committee gave James Schlesinger a skeptical reception in his first Capitol Hill appearance as advocate of President Carter's energy program. Much criticism from Democrats as well as Republicans centered on the price and tax proposals to make energy more expensive to discourage its use. [New York Times] Chrysler directors approved a 10-cent increase in the quarterly dividend to be paid in June from the pattern of 15 cents a share started last summer. At the stockholders' meeting preceding the directors' session, an exceptionally high 20 percent supported stockholders' proposals, opposed by management, to tighten formulas for incentive or bonus pay to top executives and related matters. [New York Times] The broad market outperformed the Dow Jones industrial average on the New York Stock Exchange as advances led declines by better than 2 to 1, while three issues posted a high for 1977 for every one that hit a new low. The Dow gained 2.97 points to close at 934.19. Wall Street analysts said investor sentiment was buoyed by government reports for March showing the best advance of leading indicators in 20 months. [New York Times] A draft measure to prohibit American companies from participating in Arab boycotts of Israel was agreed to by the Business Roundtable and three major Jewish groups. Its quick passage was urged by President Carter and Senator Adlai Stevenson, the Illinois Democrat who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee handling it. [New York Times] The United States and Vietnam opened talks in Paris, two years after the Communist takeover of Saigon, aimed at normalizing relations. The American delegation called the first session "frank, friendly and useful." There was speculation that an agreement in principle might be reached, with a long list of issues to be dealt with later by special commissions. [New York Times] The coming London summit meeting and North Atlantic Treaty Organization conference are not expected to solve the complex economic, political and military problems of the Western industrialized nations, according to White House sources. The administration does hope to encourage a greater sense of leadership and more political impetus toward their solution. [New York Times] For Vladimir Solovyov and his wife Yelena Klepikova, both children of Communist Party officials, their abandonment of a writing career in Moscow to become political dissidents whose writings cannot be published in their country has brought exhilarating risks. They say "finally we have become people" and have started writing news dispatches and giving them to Western correspondents. [New York Times] Production of the Minuteman 3 inter-continental ballistic missile was ordered continued for two more months by Defense Secretary Harold Brown. The reversal of the previously scheduled halt comes as the United States and the Soviet Union prepare to resume formal talks on strategic arms limitations this month. Some Pentagon officials said privately that the decision was related to the talks. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 934.19 (+2.97, +0.32%)
S&P Composite: 99.43 (+0.50, +0.51%)
Arms Index: 0.63

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	963	14.08
Declines	475	4.38
Unchanged	451	3.49
Total Volume		21.95

* 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*
May 2, 1977	931.22	98.93	17.97
April 29, 1977	926.90	98.44	18.33
April 28, 1977	927.32	98.20	18.37
April 27, 1977	923.76	97.96	20.59
April 26, 1977	915.62	97.11	20.04
April 25, 1977	914.60	97.33	20.44
April 22, 1977	927.07	98.44	20.70
April 21, 1977	935.80	99.75	22.74
April 20, 1977	942.59	100.40	25.09
April 19, 1977	938.77	100.07	19.51