News stories from Friday September 22, 1978

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

Continuing its fight to stem inflation, the Federal Reserve Board boosted the discount rate to 8 percent, equaling the previous record. The discount rate is the interest rate the Fed charges on loans to member banks. [Washington Post] President Carter paraded his newly-won reputation as peacemaker on a political swing through his native South and found the politicians and people responsive. Stumping North and South Carolina for a pair of underdog Democratic Senate candidates, Carter heard local politicians competing to come up with biblical quotations worthy of what one Congressman called "the greatest peacemaking accomplishment of our time."The only complaint from the Democrats was that Republicans were trying to horn in on the glory of Camp David. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), one of Carter's strongest conservative critics, took out ads in several North Carolina newspapers welcoming Carter to the state and praising the "framework of peace" agreement the President negotiated with Israel and Egypt. [Washington Post] Gov. Jerry Brown of California, who two years ago defeated Jimmy Carter in five straight presidential primaries, now finds himself locked in a surprisingly tight reelection battle against an opponent who has been described as being "as exciting as a mashed potato sandwich." A survey by Mervin Field's well-regarded California Poll earlier this month put Brown ahead of two-term Attorney General Evelle Younger by only five percentage points with 11 percent undecided. Furthermore, Field's survey found that significant numbers of voters considered Brown to be "wishy-washy" or "opportunistic" and also "inconsistent on Proposition 13." [Washington Post] A pocket-sized black-and-white television set weighing just over 22 ounces has been developed by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which says it plans to put it on the market in about two years for $526. [Washington Post] Rhodesian air force jets struck 125 miles into Mozambique in the third day of attacks against suspected black nationalist guerrilla bases, the government-supervised radio reported. Military sources said the raids are designed to disrupt the guerrillas' lines of communication and to seize and destroy equipment in order to slow the infiltration of guerrillas across Mozambique's eastern border into Rhodesia. [Washington Post] Prime Minister Menachem Begin, hailed as a peacemaker and greeted tumultuously by many of his critics in Israel's once-embittered peace movement, came home to try to put into motion the final steps of his country's first peace agreement with Egypt. Amid extraordinary security at Ben-Gurion Airport, Begin was welcomed by his cabinet and scores of member of parliament before plunging into a crowd of several thousand well-wishers. [Washington Post] King Hussein met with two of his most vociferous enemies who came to Jordan determined to dissuade Jordan from joining the Camp David peace process. The king embraced Palestinian guerrilla chieftain Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi and conferred with them for more than two hours. But the outcome of the talks appeared as inconclusive as Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's mission less than 24 hours earlier, which was aimed at winning the Jordanian monarch's backing for Camp David. [Washington Post] A U.S. call for the Organization of American States to step into the Nicaraguan civil war and investigate allegations of atrocities there ran into stiff opposition from Latin America's conservative military regimes. At a special foreign minister-level meeting, delegates from several military-dominated governments attacked the U.S. proposal as a violation of the O.A.S. charter's prohibition against intervening in the affairs of any hemispheric country.The Senate adopted a $9.2 billion economic foreign aid bill after voting to end most U.S. assistance to the regime of Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua. The vote was 39 to 20. Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) told the Senate that Somoza faces "a national mutiny in which almost every sector of the country has united against a dynasty which has plundered the country for nearly half a century." [Washington Post]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 862.44 (+1.30, +0.15%)
S&P Composite: 101.84 (-0.06, -0.06%)
Arms Index: 1.00

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	807	13.34
Declines	652	10.80
Unchanged	422	3.82
Total Volume		27.96

* 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*
September 21, 1978	861.14	101.90	33.65
September 20, 1978	857.16	101.73	35.08
September 19, 1978	861.57	102.53	31.66
September 18, 1978	870.15	103.21	35.83
September 15, 1978	878.55	104.12	37.29
September 14, 1978	887.04	105.10	37.40
September 13, 1978	899.60	106.34	43.33
September 12, 1978	906.44	106.99	34.41
September 11, 1978	907.74	106.98	39.66
September 8, 1978	907.74	106.79	42.07