News stories from Monday December 19, 1977

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

The seemingly unorthodox banking practices of former Budget Director Bert Lance were much less unusual than other bankers suggested, according to a number of bank regulators, bank officials, investment specialists and analysts. They say that banking customs vary dramatically throughout the country. In interviews they report that the practices found in the Lance case were most common in the states from Florida to New Mexico, states where banks are not permitted to have branches and where law or tradition nurtures the independent, single-unit bank, and in regions where the scarcity of investment capital has made the banker a commanding figure in his community. [New York Times] Bethlehem Steel announced price increases of about 5.5 percent for most of its steel products, a level that a spokesman for the Council on Wage and Price Stability said was pretty much in line with inflation. "By itself it is not too big in terms of the steel industry's costs," he said. The agency's initial mild reaction seemed to indicate that if the rest of the major producers followed the Bethlehem's level, there would not be a strong reaction from the administration. A 7 percent increase for its basic sheet products was announced over the weekend by Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel. [New York Times] Stock prices declined steadily in late trading as General Motors, one of the market's bellwethers, finished at its 1977 low, a drop of 1¼ points to 61¼. The General Motors shares were affected apparently by forecasts of an earnings decline in 1978. The company reported record profits this year. The softness of the G.M. stock also helped weaken the Dow Jones industrial average, which fell 7.37 points to 807.95. [New York Times] A reduction in some federal excise taxes is being considered by President Carter as part of his tax-cut proposals to Congress next year, White House officials announced, They were suggested by Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal (they had not been mentioned in the President's previous tax proposals); and if they are included In the tax reduction package the total would range from $20 billion to $30 billion. [New York Times] A. Bartlett Giamatti, a 39-year-old Yale professor of English, has accepted an offer to become the 18th president of Yale University, sources reported. Mr. Giamatti will become Yale's youngest president. He will succeed Kingman Brewster, who resigned last spring to become United States Ambassador to Great Britain. [New York Times] The prosecution has moved to dismiss first-degree murder charges against the so-called Dawson Five, nearly two years after the charges were filed. The first of the defendants was to go on trial Dec. 27. The dismissal followed a ruling last week by Georgia Superior Court Judge Walter Geer suppressing a confession obtained from 21-year-old Roosevelt Watson, who was accused of firing the shot that killed a white customer in a rural grocery store holdup. The judge said that the statements "were not freely, voluntarily and intelligently made.' [New York Times] A new trial was ordered for two Filipino nurses convicted last July of poisoning patients at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Hospital in Michigan on the ground that "judicial conscience" demanded it. Government prosecutors were accused of "persistent misconduct" by Judge Philip Pratt of Federal District Court in Detroit, who, in ordering a retrial, said "the insidious accretion of prosecutional misconduct" had "polluted the waters of justice" and that "judicial conscience" demanded a new trial. [New York Times] Prime Minister Menachem Begin said he would meet with President Anwar Sadat on Sunday, Christmas Day, in Ismailia, Egypt, and that he would brief Mr. Sadat on the talks he had last week at the White House with President Carter. Mr. Begin, before leaving for home, expressed optimism that his peace proposals would not be turned down out of hand at the Ismailia meeting. They were "non-rejectionable," he said, and would be received as a basis for negotiation. [New York Times] Right-wing Israelis are beginning to criticize Prime Minister Menachem Begin's proposals for Israeli-held Arab territories as possibly granting the Arabs too much, while West Bank Palestinians are denouncing them as granting too little. [New York Times] The Palestine Liberation Organization rejects the peace plan of Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel, according to a spokesman in Beirut. He warned that there would be no peace as long as the Palestinians remained without a homeland. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 807.95 (-7.37, -0.90%)
S&P Composite: 92.69 (-0.71, -0.76%)
Arms Index: 1.58

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	412	3.29
Declines	1,063	13.40
Unchanged	457	4.46
Total Volume		21.15

* 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 16, 1977	815.32	93.40	20.27
December 15, 1977	817.83	93.55	21.61
December 14, 1977	822.68	94.03	22.11
December 13, 1977	815.23	93.56	19.19
December 12, 1977	815.75	93.63	18.16
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