News stories from Tuesday September 6, 1977

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

President Carter welcomed Panama's chief of government, Gen. Omar Torrijos, to the White House at the start of a whirl of diplomatic activity intended to build support for the Panama Canal treaties. Negotiators of both countries initialed the texts of the documents. [New York Times] Budget Director Bert Lance's use of airplanes owned or leased by a bank he then headed has been referred by the Comptroller of the Currency to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution. In the Senate, the Governmental Affairs Committee headed by Abraham Ribicoff voted a full-scale investigation with subpoena powers of his activities.Senator Ribicoff said he regretted as soon as he said it, his July 26 statement that the news media had "smeared" Mr. Lance. His announcement that he was now recommending Mr. Lance's resignation was widely interpreted on Capitol Hill as dooming the Budget Director in view of the Connecticut Senator's reputation for political acumen. [New York Times] Car sales broke records for the last 10 days of August, with total new car sales of the big four domestic producers running 23.7 percent ahead of the corresponding period last year. General Motors had a 44.9 percent gain. Analysts expressed amazement at the increased demand. [New York Times] Stock prices recovered from early losses to record a gain for the fourth straight session. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 873.27, up 0.96, after GM's report of rising new car sales reached investors. [New York Times] A trans-Canada route from Alaska has won President Carter's support for the natural gas pipeline to the "lower 48," according to White House and industry sources that said he would announce this after meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada on Thursday. The Northwest Pipeline Corporation's Aleut proposal would thus have won over an El Paso Company plan to ship liquefied gas in tankers. [New York Times] The Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Tongsun Park on charges stemming from an alleged influence-buying operation in Washington to raise support for the Korean government. The indictment named former Representative Richard Hanna, Democrat of California, and two former heads of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency as unindicted co-conspirators. [New York Times] Long sentences to Hanafi Moslems who seized three buildings in downtown Washington last March by taking 134 hostages at gunpoint were meted out in Superior Court there. The 12 defendants showed no contrition, defending their acts to the last as "the will of Allah." [New York Times] Teng Hsiao-Ping, China's Deputy Prime Minister, said that efforts to establish normal diplomatic relations between Washington and Peking were set back during the visit of Secretary of State Vance last month. He told Associated Press executives and directors visiting Peking that the discussions with Mr. Vance represented a retreat from what he said was a promise by President Ford in 1976. to break relations with the Taiwan government if he was re-elected. [New York Times] Russian book lovers were delighted by Western publications at the opening of Moscow's first international book fair. But the American and British exhibitors complained of censorship, as at least nine books were barred by customs officials and four American and British publishing catalogues were confiscated. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 873.27 (+0.96, +0.11%)
S&P Composite: 97.71 (+0.26, +0.27%)
Arms Index: 0.90

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	737	7.38
Declines	605	5.43
Unchanged	509	3.32
Total Volume		16.13

* 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*
September 2, 1977	872.31	97.45	15.62
September 1, 1977	864.86	96.83	18.82
August 31, 1977	861.49	96.77	19.08
August 30, 1977	858.89	96.38	18.22
August 29, 1977	864.09	96.92	15.28
August 26, 1977	855.42	96.09	18.48
August 25, 1977	854.12	96.15	19.40
August 24, 1977	862.87	97.23	18.17
August 23, 1977	865.56	97.62	20.29
August 22, 1977	867.29	97.79	17.87