News stories from Monday December 12, 1977

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

Japan offered trade concessions in Washington that "fell considerably short" of those needed to prevent restrictive measures by Congress, according to Robert Strauss, the President's special trade representative. He spoke after the first of a series of critical talks with Japan's Minister of External Economic Affairs, Nobuhiko Ushiba. Japan proposed to cut tariffs on 300 items exported by the United States and Western Europe and to reduce non-tariff barriers on various agricultural and industrial items it imports. The United States is demanding that Japan's $8.5 billion trade surplus be cut by one-third to 40 percent within the next 12 months. Japan's offer represented one-third of the American demands. [New York Times] The stock market was quiet, almost unchanged, except for National Starch and Chemical's stock, which soared 20¾ points to 65½. The company is merging with Unilever. The Dow Jones industrial average, moving in a narrow range throughout the session, closed up 0.52 points at 815.75. Continuing concern over the weakness of the dollar in foreign exchange markets and preoccupation with year-end selling for tax loss purposes put a damper on the market, analysts said. [New York Times] Southern public colleges and universities are coming under federal pressure for further integration as the focus shifts away from primary and secondary schools in the region. Some leading Southern educators who say campus desegregation has made good progress in the past decade are furious, believing the South has been singled out as a whipping boy. [New York Times] Forced retirement at 60 is lawful, the Supreme Court ruled, provided that employers act under a pension plan that was in effect before the federal ban on age discrimination was passed in 1967. In a 7 to 2 decision, the majority held that United Airlines' 1941 plan for involuntary retirement at 60 could not be considered a subterfuge to evade the act. [New York Times] A $342 million bid for effective control of the Marshall Field & Company department store chain of Chicago has been proposed by Carter Hawley Hale Stores Inc. of Los Angeles, owner of Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman-Marcus. Carter Hawley has been pursuing the merger for more than six weeks, but Marshall Field has been unenthusiastic and has filed an antitrust suit against Carter Hawley. The latest merger proposal by Philip Hawley, president of Carter Hawley, offered as a "basis for negotiations" a tax-free exchange of stock between the two companies. Angelo Arena, Marshall Field's president and chief executive, resigned in September as chairman of the Neiman-Marcus division of Carter Hawley. [New York Times] Stores sales increased 1.5 percent in November, their second consecutive monthly gain. The Commerce Department said that department stores accounted for most of November's rise and that their sales increased to $7.1 billion from $6.1 billion in October. Clothing stores and furniture and home furnishings retailers also did well, but durable goods merchants reported declining sales, to $20.4 billion from $20.7 billion. [New York Times] Israel might accept partition of the lands of the West Bank of the Jordan River, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan said in Jerusalem, if that was what the Arabs wanted. He added that this solution had never been advanced by the Arabs and was not considered workable by Israel. It was the first discussion of this possibility by a major figure in the cabinet of Prime Minister Menachem Begin. [New York Times] A major spy scandal broke in Bonn with the announcement by the West German Defense Ministry that East German spies who were arrested last year had had access to more than 1,000 secret military documents that included blueprints for Atlantic alliance defense planning. The extent and the exact nature of the information the spies had gathered while employed by the Defense Ministry were not disclosed at the time of their arrest. A ministry spokesman said the case was "extraordinarily serious." [New York Times] A chemical company was indicted on charges that it conspired to suppress the results of tests that allegedly found that two widely used pesticides that it produced might cause cancer in humans. The pesticides, heptachlor and chlordane, were sold throughout the country under various brand names by the Velsicol Corporation, which was named in a federal grand jury indictment with six of its present or former officers and employees. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 815.75 (+0.52, +0.06%)
S&P Composite: 93.63 (-0.02, -0.02%)
Arms Index: 1.03

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	731	7.35
Declines	685	7.08
Unchanged	521	3.75
Total Volume		18.18

* 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*
December 9, 1977	815.23	93.65	19.21
December 8, 1977	806.91	92.96	20.40
December 7, 1977	807.43	92.78	21.05
December 6, 1977	806.91	92.83	23.77
December 5, 1977	821.03	94.27	19.16
December 2, 1977	823.98	94.67	21.16
December 1, 1977	825.71	94.69	24.22
November 30, 1977	829.70	94.83	22.67
November 29, 1977	827.27	94.55	22.95
November 28, 1977	839.57	96.04	21.57