News stories from Monday January 9, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Stock prices dropped for the fifth consecutive session since the start of the new year. Heavy trading was accompanied by renewed fears of rising interest rates, The Dow Jones average was down 8.93 points at 784.56, its lowest level in more than two years. The average has lost a total of 46 points since the first session of 1978. [New York Times]
- The N.A.A.C.P. broke with the administration over energy legislation and allied itself with the oil industry. The association advocates deregulation of oil and natural gas prices and greater emphasis on the development of nuclear power, which it believes would provide jobs for blacks. It is against the proposed conversion to coal from oil and gas. [New York Times]
- G. William Miller, chairman-designate of the Federal Reserve Board, has a private fortune of at least $2.4 million, consisting mostly of stock in Textron Inc., the company he has headed for nearly a decade. Mr. Miller said in an interview that he probably would sell his modest holdings of bank stock since it might constitute a conflict of interest, but that he had no intention of disposing of the Textron stock, or placing it in a blind trust. This would be contrary to what many executives entering government service do. [New York Times]
- The Treasury, in a final ruling, halved the punitive potential duties assessed against five Japanese carbon steel producers accused of selling nearly $200 million in steel in the American market under "fair value." The charges were made by the Oregon Steel Mills Division of the Gilmore Steel Corporation. The case was the biggest of 19 anti-dumping proceedings pending in the steel industry. [New York Times]
- The government dropped a bribery case against former Representative Edward Garmatz of Maryland. It announced when the trial was scheduled to begin that a main prosecution witness, Edward Heine, president of the United States Lines, had "created false documentation" to support the bribery charges. Mr. Garmatz had been accused of conspiring to receive $15,000 in "unlawful gratuities" from two shipping companies when he was chairman of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. [New York Times]
- The Supreme Court refused to consider challenges to the constitutionality of two court orders that limited news coverage of criminal trials in Ohio and South Carolina. It avoided a ruling in a similar case in Pennsylvania by sending it back to the lower courts on procedural grounds. The Justices thus left standing court orders prohibiting lawyers, parties to the cases, witnesses or jurors from making any statement outside the courtroom and its formal proceedings -- restrictions characterized by the press as ''gag orders." Jack Landau, director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that the Court's refusal to weigh the issues "leaves the press, the bar and the bench in a chaotic situation where nobody knows with any certainty what the law is." [New York Times]
- Beverly Sills will retire in 1980 as a leading operatic soprano and become co-director of the New York City Opera. Her decision was announced by the chairman of the opera and City Center, John Samuels, and Julius Rudel, director of the company. She said that at the age of 51 late in 1980 she would have accomplished all her singing hopes and "put my voice to bed." [New York Times]
- France is attempting to change the terms of its contract to supply a nuclear reprocessing plant to Pakistan to insure that plutonium, which could be diverted for use in nuclear weapons, will not be produced. The government had denied for months that it was trying to change the contract. A statement from the Foreign Ministry said that modification of the reprocessing plant had been proposed to Pakistan last September. Nuclear proliferation was one of the topics discussed by President Carter and President Valery Giscard d'Estaing in Paris last week. [New York Times]
- The American interpreter with President Carter in Warsaw, whose errors in Polish received wide publicity, said in Washington that the overall "good job" he did had been overlooked. Steven Seymour suggested that to save other interpreters similar embarrassment they be given advance texts of presidential statements and not be forced to stand in freezing rain for two hours. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 784.56 (-8.93, -1.13%)
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* |
| January 6, 1978 | 793.49 | 91.62 | 26.15 |
| January 5, 1978 | 804.92 | 92.74 | 23.57 |
| January 4, 1978 | 813.58 | 93.52 | 24.09 |
| January 3, 1978 | 817.74 | 93.82 | 17.72 |
| December 30, 1977 | 831.17 | 95.10 | 23.56 |
| December 29, 1977 | 830.39 | 94.94 | 23.61 |
| 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 |