News stories from Friday July 22, 1977

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

Bert Lance, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, will be asked by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to explain circumstances in which he received a $3.4 million loan in January from the First National Bank of Chicago. Mr. Lance recently asked the committee to be relieved of a pledge to sell 301,000 shares in the Georgia bank. The committee deferred action on the request until he answers questions about the Chicago bank's loan. [New York Times] After denying the administration the power to set natural gas prices, a Senate-House conference committee agreed on legislative details dealing with the establishment of a Department of Energy that would have 20,000 employees. The conference accepted the House provision that would transfer the gas pricing authority, now with the Federal Power Commission, to a new, five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. [New York Times] Bethlehem Steel announced price increases for some of its products similar to those announced Thursday by United States Steel. The new U.S. Steel prices, which would become effective Sept. 4, were denounced by the administration. Bethlehem's increases were taken in Washington as an affront to the administration and as a calculated reminder that the administration could talk, but lacked real power over steel pricing. [New York Times] Exxon's earnings dropped 3.4 percent in the second quarter and 7.9 percent in the year's first half, primarily because of losses from foreign-exchange transactions. Excluding those losses, the company's profits would have risen 11.7 percent in the second quarter and 4.5 percent in the first half. [New York Times] Modest but steady gains moved stock prices up for the sixth consecutive session. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.64 points to 923,42, a gain of more than 20 points since last Friday, reflecting an improvement in recently neglected industrial stocks. [New York Times] In a reorganization of its manufacturing lines, the conglomerate G.A.F. Corporation is dropping its unprofitable consumer line of cameras, films and color print papers and will concentrate instead on professional camera equipment, industrial chemicals and building materials. The company plans to shed other "unprofitable and marginal operations" and will sell its dyes and pigments business, felt and filter manufacturing and a small chemical reselling and distribution business. [New York Times] Governor Carey made a formal request to Washington to have New York City designated a "major disaster area" so that the city government could be entitled to federal reimbursement for the financial loss suffered in last week's blackout. The loss to the city, Mayor Beame estimated, was $14.6 million, of which $10.7 million was the cost of overtime for police, transit police and correction employees. [New York Times] The second day of fighting between Egypt and Libya continued with the bombing and strafing by Egypt of a Libyan air base. A military spokesman in Cairo said that the planes had struck the air base of El Adem near Tobruk in retaliation for three Libyan air raids on Egyptian troops near the Egyptian town of Salum. President Anwar Sadat blamed "that very strange person," Col. Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, for the steady decline in their countries' relations. [New York Times] Israel will be permitted to divert $107 million of $250 million in American military aid for the production of its new heavy tank, the Chariot. The Carter administration decision, an apparent gesture to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, was disclosed at his meeting with President Carter this week. [New York Times] Sri Lanka's Freedom Party was all but ousted from Parliament with the defeat of its leader, Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, in Thursday's general election. Junius Richard Jayewardene was the overwhelming victor. Mr. Jayewardene said he would eventually replace the British-style parliamentary system with a presidential government, modeled on that of France, which he would lead. [New York Times] China announced that the purge of the moderate leader Teng Hsiao-ping was over and that he had been returned to power. His political opponents, the Gang of Four, which includes Mao Tse-tung's widow, have been expelled from the Communist Party. Mr. Teng, who is 74 years old, spent the last 15 months in internal exile. He was restored to his posts as a party deputy chairman and Deputy Prime Minister, making him China's third-ranking leader. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 923.42 (+1.64, +0.18%)
S&P Composite: 101.59 (0.00, 0.00%)
Arms Index: 1.34

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	789	10.83
Declines	476	8.77
Unchanged	624	3.51
Total Volume		23.11

* 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 21, 1977	921.78	101.59	26.88
July 20, 1977	920.48	101.73	29.38
July 19, 1977	919.27	101.79	31.94
July 18, 1977	910.60	100.95	26.89
July 15, 1977	905.95	100.18	29.12
July 13, 1977	902.99	99.59	23.16
July 12, 1977	903.41	99.45	22.47
July 11, 1977	905.53	99.55	19.79
July 8, 1977	907.99	99.79	23.82
July 7, 1977	909.51	99.93	21.74