News stories from Monday July 11, 1977

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

Broad changes in labor laws will be called for by President Carter in a message to Congress this week to make it easier and quicker for unions to organize and to recruit new members, administration and labor officials said. The message is apparently intended in part to regain for the administration the labor support that has eroded steadily since President Carter took office. [New York Times] The House ethics committee's chairman has been criticized by the committee's special counsel for going too slowly in conducting the inquiry into alleged influence buying in Washington by South Korea, congressional officials said. The counsel, Philip Lacovara, sent a confidential memo to other committee members saying that Representative John Flynt, the committee chairman, had failed to carry forward a timely investigation and he urged efforts to overcome what he described as "shortcomings." The memo was said to reflect a series of disagreements between the two men in recent weeks. [New York Times] Guided by indications of a slower economic growth rate later this year -- provided by equity and commodity prices -- stock market investors in a bearish mood switched from industrial issues to some of the growth and glamour shares. The bearishness affected the Dow Jones industrial average, which fell 2.46 points to 905.53. Other indicators were also off. The New York Stock Exchange's composite index declined 0.16 point and Standard & Poor's average of 500 shares eased 0.24. During the session, 790 issues fell and 649 gained. [New York Times] Attacks are being made in Congress and the aerospace industry on the administration's decision to sell $1.2 billion in highly complex airborne radar systems to Iran, There are charges that the Defense Department blocked all competition and failed to offer the Shah of Iran a less expensive alternative. Critics also say that the proposed sale goes against President Carter's policy of limiting the sales of weapons abroad. [New York Times] Dr. Veniamin Levich, a Soviet Jewish scientist who has been denied permission to emigrate, said in Moscow that it was a bad sign for the future that he had also been kept from an international conference on physical chemistry now being held in his honor in Oxford, England. He asked all Western intellectuals to take up his and similar cases with Soviet representatives at every opportunity. [New York Times] The comfortable legislative majorities voters have given Japan's governing Liberal-Democratic Party for most of the last 22 years ended in Sunday's election when the party lost control of the upper house of Parliament by a few seats. The party will continue to control the chamber, however, with the help of three conservative independents whose support will give the Liberal-Democrats a bare majority of 127 seats in the 252-seat upper house. [New York Times] Truckloads of homeless Eritreans are fleeing to the Sudan from villages devastated by bombing and burning in the area wrested from the Ethiopian army by nationalist guerrillas. Although 90 percent of the population is gone, the Eritrean fighters are confident of winning independence and are sustaining civilian life with a system of schools, hospitals and development programs. [New York Times] Spain devalued the peseta and at the same time proposed a series of tax reforms designed to stimulate the economy. A government spokesman refused to specify the new rate, but said it would be "realistic." Financial experts had predicted a devaluation of 20 to 35 percent. The old rate was 69.99 pesetas to the dollar. The new rate was expected to be set when the government reopens the foreign exchanges, possibly tomorrow. The exchanges were closed today. [New York Times] A timetable for worldwide trade negotiations was presented to Common Market leaders in Brussels by Robert Strauss, President Carter's trade negotiator, with an expression of hope that the talks would be concluded by spring with an agreement that would last a decade. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 905.53 (-2.46, -0.27%)
S&P Composite: 99.55 (-0.24, -0.24%)
Arms Index: 1.17

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	683	7.07
Declines	736	8.94
Unchanged	478	3.78
Total Volume		19.79

* 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 8, 1977	907.99	99.79	23.82
July 7, 1977	909.51	99.93	21.74
July 6, 1977	907.73	99.58	21.23
July 5, 1977	913.59	100.09	16.85
July 1, 1977	912.65	100.10	18.16
June 30, 1977	916.30	100.48	19.41
June 29, 1977	913.33	100.11	19.00
June 28, 1977	915.62	100.14	22.67
June 27, 1977	924.10	100.98	19.87
June 24, 1977	929.70	101.19	26.49