News stories from Monday September 26, 1977

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

Moving to salvage his energy program, President Carter called on the Senate to "act responsibly" and "reject narrow, special interest attacks on all segments of the national energy plan." His program, meanwhile, had further setbacks in the Senate, which voted overwhelmingly to cut off a filibuster by liberals opposed to decontrol of natural gas prices. The Finance Committee agreed to kill the President's proposed tax on domestically produced oil. The committee, though, appeared willing to revive the tax if another formula for using the revenues could be found. [New York Times] President Carter said the United States would achieve is objective of a 6 percent economic growth this year. In a speech in Washington at the opening of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the President declared this country was committed to "vigorous" activity in 1978, and he indirectly criticized other nations by pointing out that the slowing pace of economic activity abroad was one factor in the large and growing trading deficit of the United States. [New York Times] The nation's trade deficit reached $2.7 billion in August and was the second largest on record, the Commerce Department said, mainly because other countries with more economic problems could not afford to buy American goods. The United States, however, relied less on imports, the government report said. Oil imports, the cause of most of the trade imbalance this year, declined 9 percent to $3.3 billion. [New York Times] The stock market overcame unfavorable economic news and finished mixed after a late mild recovery erased some earlier losses. This enabled the Dow Jones industrial average, which had been heading for a decline, to close up 2.51 points at 841.65. [New York Times] New York and other cities with problems of blight would receive greatly increased housing and community-development aid over the next three years under a $12.4 billion program agreed on by Senate and House conferees. The agreement would give Northeastern states a 71 percent increase over current funds. A minimum of $987 million would be allocated for New York state. [New York Times] Working with a pesticide known to cause sterility might be helpful to older agricultural laborers who want no children and others who would like to get around religious bans against birth control, the National Peach Council told the government, which has banned the worm fumigant known as DBCP. The council represents 6,300 peach growers in 35 states. The widely used pesticide also has caused stomach and mammary cancer in laboratory rats. [New York Times] Standards for the nation's hospitals proposed by federal health planners would eliminate most of an estimated total of 100,000 unneeded beds over the next seven years. [New York Times] Israel announced a cease-fire in the area of the Lebanese border where Palestinian guerrillas and Israeli-backed Lebanese Christians have been engaged in heavy fighting for 10 days. It called this the result of diplomatic endeavors through the good offices of the United States. The Israeli radio later reported quiet along the border. Israeli troops, vehicles and armor were seen returning from earlier sorties into southern Lebanon. [New York Times] The highly competitive bargain-fare Skytrain flights of Britain's Laker Airways between London and New York were started by a DC-10 that carried 270 passengers and three infants-in-arms. A round trip costs about $237 -- $102 from London and, because of currency differences, $135 the other way. Some passengers had waited in line for two days and two nights at London's Gatwick Airport to be sure of a seat, but the flight had 73 seats to spare.Soon after Laker's flight left London, the White House announced that President Carter had overruled the' Civil Aeronautics Board's refusal to set more competitive fares and had authorized New York-London fares for major airlines that were almost as cheap as Laker's. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 841.65 (+2.51, +0.30%)
S&P Composite: 95.38 (+0.34, +0.36%)
Arms Index: 0.63

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	624	8.06
Declines	724	5.88
Unchanged	516	4.29
Total Volume		18.23

* 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 23, 1977	839.14	95.04	18.76
September 22, 1977	839.14	95.09	16.66
September 21, 1977	840.96	95.10	22.20
September 20, 1977	851.78	95.89	19.03
September 19, 1977	851.52	95.85	16.89
September 16, 1977	856.81	96.48	18.34
September 15, 1977	860.79	96.80	18.23
September 14, 1977	858.71	96.55	17.33
September 13, 1977	854.56	96.09	14.90
September 12, 1977	854.38	96.03	18.70