News stories from Thursday November 10, 1977

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

The stock market's best session in 13 months sent the Dow Jones industrial average up 14.12 points to 832.55. The main reason for the recovery seemed to be that investors were more hopeful that the Federal Reserve had completed its credit tightening. [New York Times] The National Council of Churches urged its 30 constituent denominations to withdraw all their funds from financial institutions that deal with South Africa's government and businesses, The council's plea was made at the fall meeting of the governing board in New York. It followed an address by Andrew Young, the United States delegate to the United Nations, who described as "prophetic" the role of religion in the worldwide effort to end racial discrimination. [New York Times] A defense budget increase to at least $130 billion for the new fiscal year was tentatively approved by Defense Secretary Harold Brown. The figure is several billion dollars more than Congress and defense analysts had anticipated. Administration sources linked the higher figure to pressure in the Pentagon and the administration to spend more money on logistics, air defense, tanks and other weapons for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. [New York Times] President Carter made conciliatory remarks at his news conference about Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, who has been critical of the President's economic policies. The White House has also criticized the Federal Reserve's monetary policies, but Mr. Carter said that he had never had any disagreements with Dr. Burns and that he was not inclined to criticize recent moves at the Federal Reserve that have increased interest rates. The President said that he would probably endorse a new full-employment bill within a few days, but only after its most controversial features had been eliminated, and he said that he was not committed to any particular tax reform. [New York Times] The United States coffee industry has unobtrusively held for more than 15 years an influential position close to the government officials who negotiate international coffee agreements, according to documents obtained by a House subcommittee. In 1975, as many as 10 at a time of the nation's most prominent coffee executives participated in government negotiations for a worldwide pact covering the $7 billion coffee industry. The industry group was also said to have been instrumental in persuading the government not to press for the establishment of an international coffee stockpile that was to stabilize supply and thus avert price increases. [New York Times] New York City suffered a major blow to its fiscal recovery when its underwriters abruptly canceled a long-awaited sale of short-term notes after Moody's Investor Service gave the offering its lowest investment-grade credit rating. The underwriters concluded they could not possibly sell city securities to the public because of the rating by Moody's, which also said that the city's "overall financial position is so precarious as not to preclude a possibility of bankruptcy in future years." Mayor Beame denounced Moody's for what he termed an "outrageous decision." [New York Times] Arab countries were urged by President Carter to follow Egypt's example and agree to an immediate Geneva peace conference with Israel "without quibbling anymore" over procedural issues. At his news conference, he expressed no criticism of Israel's retaliatory bombing of southern Lebanon Wednesday, but he used the "latest outburst of violence" to urge Syria, Jordan and Lebanon to join Egypt's efforts toward a peace conference. [New York Times] The South African police arrested 626 blacks, including nearly 200 schoolchildren, in a house-to-house search in a black township near Pretoria. The six-hour raid was supervised from the air by officers in a helicopter. A police official said the raid had been undertaken to combat criminal elements in the township. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 832.55 (+14.12, +1.73%)
S&P Composite: 94.71 (+1.73, +1.86%)
Arms Index: 0.67

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	1,376	26.74
Declines	229	2.97
Unchanged	323	2.27
Total Volume		31.98

* 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*
November 9, 1977	818.43	92.98	21.33
November 8, 1977	816.27	92.46	19.21
November 7, 1977	816.44	92.29	21.27
November 4, 1977	809.94	91.58	21.70
November 3, 1977	802.67	90.76	18.09
November 2, 1977	800.85	90.71	20.76
November 1, 1977	806.91	91.35	17.17
October 31, 1977	818.35	92.34	17.07
October 28, 1977	822.68	92.61	18.05
October 27, 1977	818.61	92.34	21.92