News stories from Friday July 28, 1978

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

Consumer prices rose in June, sending the adjusted annual rate of inflation to 11.4 percent for the second quarter of the year, the government reported. The cost of living increased nine-tenths of 1 percent nationwide in June, the same rate as in April and May. Prices rose at an annual rate of 9.3 percent in the first three months of the year, after an average increase of 4.7 percent in the last half of 1977. [New York Times] An G.S.A. official was dismissed from his post. He was Robert Griffin, a close friend of Speaker Tip O'Neill. President Carter sought to mollify Mr. O'Neill, but the Speaker remained unappeased, saying he had been "treated shabbily." Mr. Carter had sought to explain why he backed the decision of Jay Solomon, the General Services Administration director, to remove his deputy. [New York Times] The health insurance policy advocated by President Carter was denounced by Senator Edward Kennedy as inadequate and "unacceptable." The Senator said he planned to "take the issue to the people" and to introduce his own legislation. The administration is to introduce its policy in a statement of "principles" tomorrow. [New York Times] Valuable movie footage was stolen by three armed men who handcuffed four film editors in an office in Boston. William Friedkin, director of the $12.5 million film about the legendary 1950 robbery of the Brink's Security Company there, said he was not certain whether there were copies of the footage and that "it may be irreplaceable." The Boston police speculated that the motive for the robbery might be extortion. The value of the stolen film was estimated at nearly $1 million. [New York Times] South Africa's Prime Minister said his country would not "be dictated to" by the United Nations over the disputed port of Walvis Bay, which the Security Council wants integrated into the new state of Namibia, now known as South-West Africa. The statement by John Vorster did not say whether South Africa would reject the Security Council call for black-majority rule in the territory because of the resolution on Walvis Bay, the territory's only deep-water port. [New York Times] Christina Onassis will live in Moscow for six months, in a small apartment with her Soviet husband and his mother, cooking and washing the dishes, according to close friends of the Greek shipping heiress. Miss Onassis, her friends said, is determined to prove that she is "serious" about her planned marriage to Sergei Kausov, a former Soviet shipping official. [New York Times] A U.S. envoy arrived in Cairo from Jerusalem to continue pressing for new peace talks between Egypt and Israel. Alfred Atherton, the United States special envoy, expressed neither optimism nor pessimism about prospects of resuming direct negotiations between Egypt and Israel, with the United States as intermediary. [New York Times] Cambodia defended its isolation and the evacuation of Phnom Penh after the Communist victory in 1975 as necessary "because otherwise we would have had a civil war." Ieng Sary, Cambodia's Foreign Minister, said that if the new regime had not begun such policies "more would have died" and "that would open the door to neighbors to intervene." He spoke in Belgrade, where he is attending the meeting of non-aligned nations. [New York Times] Cuba defended its foreign policy against growing criticism by non-aligned countries, implying that its critics had "sold out" to reactionary powers. Foreign Minister Isidoro Peoli particularly rebuked Egypt and China in a speech to the non-aligned conference in Belgrade, but his wide-ranging statements were also aimed at countries opposed to Havana's pro-Soviet policies. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 856.29 (+5.72, +0.67%)
S&P Composite: 100.00 (+0.46, +0.46%)
Arms Index: 0.72

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	968	20.53
Declines	535	8.22
Unchanged	385	4.67
Total Volume		33.42

* 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*
July 27, 1978	850.57	99.54	33.97
July 26, 1978	847.19	99.08	36.82
July 25, 1978	839.57	98.44	25.40
July 24, 1978	831.60	97.72	23.27
July 21, 1978	833.42	97.75	26.07
July 20, 1978	838.62	98.03	33.34
July 19, 1978	840.70	98.12	30.85
July 18, 1978	829.00	96.87	22.86
July 17, 1978	839.05	97.78	29.18
July 14, 1978	839.83	97.58	28.37