News stories from Friday November 27, 1981

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

In Abscam tape recordings, a convicted businessman and an associate assert that Alfonse D'Amato, as a Long Island town official in 1979, was ready to influence the granting of development rights on public land in return for "contributions." The assertions, which federal prosecutors plan to place before a grand jury, were denied by a spokesman for Mr. D'Amato, now a Republican Senator from New York. [New York Times] The air controller training academy will be visited next week by investigators for a House committee that is examining charges that students' test scores were upgraded to speed replacements for the 11,500 controllers who were dismissed in August for striking illegally. A member of the House panel said that federal aviation officials were not cooperating with the investigation. [New York Times] International Harvester reported a big loss. The No. 1 maker of farm and construction equipment said it lost $635.7 million on its regular business in the year ended Oct. 31, nearly 70 percent more than its loss a year earlier. Harvester attributed the wider deficit mainly to "depressed world markets for its machinery, high interest expenses and industrywide price discounting." [New York Times] Anti-infestation efforts to combat the Mediterranean fruit fly in California face a new problem. Officials of the drive to eradicate the destructive pest are convinced that a prankster or saboteur placed dead flies in detection traps in September as false evidence of infestation. [New York Times] The winter will be colder than normal east of the Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains, the National Weather Service said. [New York Times] A major blackout in San Juan was believed to have been caused by terrorists. Two key installations exploded and burned, halting power for El Condado, the Puerto Rican capital's main tourist section. [New York Times] A ban against strikes in Poland is being sought by the Communist Party leadership. Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Prime Minister and party leader, said that the economy and severe food shortages were worsening primarily because farmers were staging demonstrations and sit-ins and withholding agricultural products to protest low wholesale prices. [New York Times] The perception of the Libyan regime of Col. Muammar Qaddafi held by the Reagan administration is deliberately oversimplified, in the view of some of America's West European allies. They say that the Qaddafi regime is more complex and probably less dangerous than Washington will acknowledge, and that the American position could damage Western economic interests in Libyan oil and propel Libya closer to Moscow. [New York Times] The makeup of the Sinai peace force may not be decided at a special meeting of the Israeli cabinet on Sunday. Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir left open the possibility that a decision on participation by Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands may be postponed. Prime Minister Menachem Begin has expressed opposition to their participation because of their support for positions that Israel views as pro-Palestinian. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 885.94 (+7.80, +0.89%)
S&P Composite: 125.09 (+1.04, +0.84%)
Arms Index: 0.49

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	969	23.06
Declines	487	5.71
Unchanged	399	4.00
Total Volume		32.77

* 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 25, 1981	878.14	124.05	58.57
November 24, 1981	870.24	123.51	53.37
November 23, 1981	851.79	121.60	45.27
November 20, 1981	852.93	121.71	52.01
November 19, 1981	844.75	120.71	48.72
November 18, 1981	844.06	120.26	49.98
November 17, 1981	850.17	121.15	43.19
November 16, 1981	845.03	120.24	43.74
November 13, 1981	855.88	121.67	45.57
November 12, 1981	860.54	123.19	55.71