News stories from Thursday December 29, 1977

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

President Carter arrived in Warsaw, starting a six-nation tour. He was greeted in freezing weather in the Polish capital by Edward Gierek, the country's Communist Party leader in the ceremonies that were restrained. After the President had responded to Mr. Gierek's greeting, a small crowd of about 300 Polish officials and American Embassy personnel waved miniature Polish and American flags and applauded. [New York Times] General Motors announced a price increase of about 3 percent for the sub-compact Chevrolet Chevette, its best-selling car. Price increases for other G.M. cars are expected to follow. The Chevette increase will bring the price in most states of the two-door hatchback up to about $3,454, and the four-door model up to about $3,547. The car's price in nine Western states will remain $100 or more under the price in other states. [New York Times] President Carter decided four weeks ago not to reappoint Arthur Burns as the Federal Reserve Board's chairman, setting off a scramble among the President's key advisers and congressional powers who wanted to influence the selection of Dr. Burns' successor. The selection of G. William Miller as the new chairman was said to be a victory for Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal and Vice President Mondale, who had wanted a progressive business leader, preferably a Democrat, to fill the job. [New York Times] Stock prices rose moderately and the Dow Jones industrial average, overcoming a loss of 4½ points in the morning, closed up 0.69 point at 830.39. Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones by a margin of about 7 to 6. Investors have until the close of trading tomorrow to take losses on securities transactions for 1977 income tax purposes. [New York Times] Large coffee purchases by agents of Brazil and El Salvador, two big coffee producers, are being investigated by the United States to find whether the two countries had made a coordinated effort to influence markets in New York. It is believed, according to trade and regulatory sources, that the countries might have conspired to keep coffee prices up while market forces might have forced them down. The investigation is being conducted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Brazilian agents have hired Howard Schneider, the commission's former general counsel, to represent them. [New York Times] An agreement is near between the United States and South Korea that could, according to government officials in Washington, pave the way for Tongsun Park to testify about his alleged efforts to influence members of Congress. The officials said that under the agreement, Mr. Park, a former Washington businessman, would undergo questioning by Department of Justice officials at the United States Embassy in Seoul in mid-January. [New York Times] President Anwar Sadat said he was "disappointed" by President Carter's stand against a Palestinian state and said in interviews in Cairo that Mr. Carter's remarks could delay a Middle East peace settlement. "He is making my job very difficult for me," he said, speaking about Mr. Carter. "This embarrasses me." Egyptian officials believed that Mr. Carter's remarks Wednesday about the Palestinian issue were badly timed and that they implied that Mr. Carter was siding with Israel at a delicate period of the negotiations. [New York Times] Prime Minister Menachem Begin welcomed President Carter's opposition to a Palestinian state, saying that it was helpful in Israel's negotiations with Egypt. Meanwhile, Mr. Begin's self-rule proposal for Israeli-occupied Arab territories on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with Israeli troops remaining there received a generally negative reception from officials on the West Bank. [New York Times] The United States is making an effort through diplomatic channels to convince Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat that there is a significant opportunity to negotiate an agreement despite their sharp differences over the Palestinian issue, administration officials said. [New York Times] Stiff penalties for Vietnamese caught attempting to flee the country have been adopted by the Communist government. A boatload of 32 Vietnamese who managed to escape in mid-December arrived at a refugee camp at Laem Sing on the Gulf of Siam. They said that the government had recently started a campaign of intimidation. Sound trucks, loudspeakers and posters give warnings about escape attempts. Many more patrol boats are now guarding the Vietnamese coast, the refugees said. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 830.39 (+0.69, +0.08%)
S&P Composite: 94.94 (+0.19, +0.20%)
Arms Index: 0.70

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	801	12.10
Declines	616	6.54
Unchanged	500	4.97
Total Volume		23.61

* 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 28, 1977	829.70	94.75	19.63
December 27, 1977	829.70	94.69	16.75
December 23, 1977	829.87	94.69	20.08
December 22, 1977	821.81	93.80	28.10
December 21, 1977	813.93	93.05	24.51
December 20, 1977	806.22	92.50	23.25
December 19, 1977	807.95	92.69	21.15
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