News stories from Friday January 20, 1978

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

The New York region's worst snowstorm of the decade disrupted transportation, business and government operations and marooned millions of people in city and suburban homes. Thirteen inches of snow covered the region and bad conditions were made worse by high drifts. The storm area extended from Washington to New England. It was the deepest snowfall in New York City since February 1969, when 15.3 inches fell. Mayor Koch declared a citywide snow emergency and toured snowbound sections of Queens and Brooklyn. The city had 1,100 plows and snow blowers at work.By 3 P.M., 16.6 inches of snow had fallen in Boston, and several more inches were predicted. Hundreds of riders stranded after a subway crash there had to be sheltered in a subway car shop while city officials tried to find food for them. It was Boston's second subway crash in three days, and at least 19 persons were injured. All major routes into and around the city were impassible. In West Virginia, a 21-to-39-inch accumulation of snow was called "the heaviest statewide in the memory of man." [New York Times] Consumer prices rose 6.8 percent in December compared with 4.8 percent in 1976, the Department of Labor said. In December, prices increased by only four-tenths of 1 percent compared with five-tenths of 1 percent in November. A sharp gain in food prices in 1977 boosted the overall increase. [New York Times] Attorney General Griffin Bell dismissed David Marston, the United States Attorney in Philadelphia, a Republican who had at least two Democratic Congressmen under investigation. Mr. Marston said that Mr. Bell's explanation for his dismissal was "purely political." [New York Times] President Carter announced what could be a more rigorous program for slowing down wage and price increases as part of a broad range of actions to improve the "health and fairness" of the economy. The anti-inflation program, described as "voluntary," calls on labor and employers to keep the rate of wage and price increases in 1978 below the average of the preceding two years. [New York Times] Stock prices slumped a bit in a trading session that opened at noon, two hours late because of the snowstorm. The Dow Jones industrial average declined 1.73 points to 776.94. None of the average's 65 industrial components changed as much as a point, reflecting the market's quiescence in the worst storm here in a decade. [New York Times] Utility coal stockpiles have seriously been depleted by the coal strike, now in its sixth week, from Virginia through the industrial Middle West to Kansas. These are the states most dependent upon coal mined by the United Mine Workers. [New York Times] Secretary of State Cyrus Vance could not persuade President Anwar Sadat to send his negotiating team back to Jerusalem, but he got a public pledge that "the door to peace is not closed." Mr. Sadat said at a joint news conference that "the whole thing should now be re-evaluated." [New York Times] President Sadat was described as deeply distressed over the way the Egyptian-Israeli peace talks were going by an American Jewish leader who visited him in Aswan a week before Mr. Sadat called his delegation home from Jerusalem. Rabbi Alexander Schindler said Mr. Sadat had told him that he felt his peace initiative was slipping away, but that he had done everything possible to fulfill his "sacred mission." Rabbi Schindler is chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 776.94 (-1.73, -0.22%)
S&P Composite: 89.89 (-0.20, -0.22%)
Arms Index: 1.21

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	538	2.40
Declines	622	3.36
Unchanged	520	1.82
Total Volume		7.58

* 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*
January 19, 1978	778.67	90.09	21.50
January 18, 1978	786.30	90.56	21.39
January 17, 1978	779.02	89.88	19.36
January 16, 1978	771.74	89.43	18.76
January 13, 1978	775.73	89.69	18.01
January 12, 1978	778.15	89.82	22.73
January 11, 1978	775.90	89.74	22.88
January 10, 1978	781.53	90.17	25.18
January 9, 1978	784.56	90.64	27.90
January 6, 1978	793.49	91.62	26.15