News stories from Wednesday August 24, 1977

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

The Internal Revenue Service is investigating an allegation that an official in the Atlanta office of the Comptroller of the Currency ordered a bank examiner to give Bert Lance's First National Bank of Calhoun, Ga., a clean bill of health in October 1976, sources familiar with the inquiry said. In November, these sources said, the official used that examination as partial justification for terminating an agreement with the bank that could have been embarrassing to Mr. Lance at his Senate nomination hearing. [New York Times] The House Ethics Committee's new counsel, Leon Jaworski, said after a closed meeting with its members that he still intended to question Tongsun Park, the Korean businessman who is a key figure in its investigation of alleged influence buying in Congress. Earlier, in Seoul Mr. Park said at a news conference that he was not guilty and would refuse to cooperate with the investigation. [New York Times] Blame for the blackout in New York City on July 13 and 14 was shifted by the Consolidated Edison Company away from the lightning strikes that started the emergency, with more of it attributed to human and mechanical failures within its own system. The company president said it now appeared that the system operator should nave acted sooner. [New York Times] Mid-August car sales continued at record levels for new domestic products, encouraging industry analysts' predictions that the 1977 sales year would be one of the best in a decade. General Motors reported the biggest increase, capturing 57.3 percent of the domestic market for the 10-day period, while Ford and Chrysler had moderate increases and American Motors remained in a slump. [New York Times] Stock prices felt the depressing effect of weakness in the glamour issues. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 2.69 points, closing at 862.87, its lowest reading since Jan. 2, 1976. [New York Times] The Secretary of Agriculture, Bob Bergland, has asked President Carter to approve a 25 percent acreage reduction program for 1978 to counter a growing national wheat surplus. It would be the first imposition of government controls over grain production in five years. Mr. Bergland said that when he saw Mr. Carter on Tuesday the President gave no final word on signing the pending omnibus farm and food stamp hill. Approval of the "set-aside" wheat acreage proposal would imply that he would sign that bill, according to Secretary Bergland. [New York Times] Limited American efforts to help settle the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland have been discussed within the government, a White House spokesman said. Jody Powell cautioned at the same time that reports of a "peace initiative" in Ulster were exaggerated and that there would be no direct American involvement. He said that British and Irish press reports of American economic aid as an incentive for peace had been "overplayed" and that President Carter had only just learned of the discussions about possible assistance. At the State Department, it was disclosed that the Secretary, Cyrus Vance, had discussed the problems of Northern Ireland with Representative Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House, and with Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Edward Kennedy, all of whom agreed that the problem should be resolved without American involvement. [New York Times] The Peking meeting between Secretary Vance and Teng Hsiao-ping about normalizing diplomatic relation between China and the United States made no apparent progress. An American spokesman said there was a very full exchange on the main issues of the future status of Taiwan. [New York Times] The United States and Britain have developed a plan for Rhodesia that would eliminate Prime Minister Ian Smith from a leadership role and involve a large United Nations peacekeeping force, administrative officials said. The plan would involve taking apart Mr. Smith's government and disbanding both black nationalist military forces and the white-led Rhodesian army, the officials said. [New York Times] India has quietly ended an agreement with the Soviet Union and turned instead to the United States for technical help in expanding its steel plant at Bokaro. According to official sources, the Soviet Union was told that the decision by the Janata Party government was not political. A steel authority official said the Soviet Union lacked the skills needed for the second stage of constructing the plant. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 862.87 (-2.69, -0.31%)
S&P Composite: 97.23 (-0.39, -0.40%)
Arms Index: 1.34

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	575	5.05
Declines	844	9.95
Unchanged	461	3.17
Total Volume		18.17

* 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*
August 23, 1977	865.56	97.62	20.29
August 22, 1977	867.29	97.79	17.87
August 19, 1977	863.48	97.51	20.80
August 18, 1977	864.26	97.68	21.04
August 17, 1977	864.59	97.74	20.92
August 16, 1977	869.28	97.73	19.34
August 15, 1977	874.13	98.18	15.75
August 12, 1977	871.10	97.88	16.87
August 11, 1977	877.43	98.16	21.74
August 10, 1977	887.04	98.92	18.28