News stories from Thursday November 2, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Wholesale prices in October soared 0.9 percent for the second consecutive month, the Labor Department reported today. Sharply rising food prices again were a main contributor to the overall increase. The department said its overall index of wholesale prices stood at 199.7 last month, using a 1967 index of 100. That means costs have almost exactly doubled from the 1967 level. [Chicago Tribune]
- President Carter has done what was once thought unthinkable for a Democratic President: he has chosen tight money as one of his main weapons to fight inflation and save the dollar. But some economists warn that the bullet Carter has finally chosen to bite on inflation may go off. By raising the Federal Reserve discount rate to a record 9.5 percent, the President is risking an economic slowdown or a recession that would increase unemployment, they warn. [Chicago Tribune]
- The Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., despite an agreement reached with the federal government, reportedly is turning away some customers who try to get their Firestone 500 radial tires replaced. The Baltimore Evening Sun reported that many drivers who thought their tires would be replaced free of charge are being told by dealers they are due only half-price rebates or none at all. [Chicago Tribune]
- International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. has been charged, in a complaint made public by court order, of making $8.7 million in illegal payments abroad for contracts worth "hundreds of millions of dollars." The Securities and Exchange Commission complaint against I.T.T. charges the firm with making "illegal, improper, corrupt, and questionable payments" to foreign government and business officials in Indonesia, Iran, the Philippines, Algeria, Nigeria, Mexico, Italy, Turkey and Chile. [Chicago Tribune]
- Because of his "war crimes," the U.S. government said, it is moving to deport a former South Vietnamese general who shot to death a bound Vietcong prisoner in a scene viewed on television by millions of Americans. The Immigration and Naturalization Service advised Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan last summer it plans to rescind the permanent residency status he was granted in 1975. [Chicago Tribune]
- Profit taking pushed stock prices down in heavy trading. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 10.83 points to 816.93. Although for most of the day more issues were gaining than losing in the overall New York Stock Exchange list, the pattern reversed at the close. Analysts said there was concern about higher interest rates from the new U.S. program to bolster the international value of the dollar.
Government and financial leaders in Western Europe welcomed President's Carter bold efforts to shore up the American dollar with a sigh of relief and no small amount of grumbling that it was "about time."
Lee Iacocca, fired in June as president of Ford Motor Co., has been named president of Chrysler Corp. At the same time, Chrysler announced record third quarter and nine month net losses and a reduction in its quarterly dividend to 10 cents a share from 25 cents. Iacocca replaces Eugene Cafiero, who will become vice chairman.
[Chicago Tribune] - Ronald Reagan, whose conservative wing of the Republican party has butted heads with Senator Charles Percy [R., Illinois] many times, lent his support to Percy's re-election campaign. The former California governor joined Percy at a reception in suburban Chicago and endorsed him as a Senator "who in his two terms has served his state well and should go back to Washington." [Chicago Tribune]
- Hundreds of Chinese troops struck across the border into Vietnam and killed or wounded many Vietnamese soldiers before being driven back by a counterattack, Hanoi radio said. According to the Hanoi broadcasts, the fighting occurred in Vietnam's northern Cao Lang province after thousands of Chinese soldiers had "marched to the frontier." In another broadcast, Hanoi charged that China had sent at least 100,000 soldiers and advisers into Cambodia. [Chicago Tribune]
- President Julius Nyerere vowed that his army will strike back at Ugandan President Idi Amin's invasion force "until we have finally gotten rid of this snake from our house." He called Amin "a barbarian." Nyerere also disclosed that Tanzanian ground forces had shot down three of their own warplanes by mistake. Amin announced that his troops had occupied 710 square miles of Tanzanian territory. [Chicago Tribune]
- A squad of assassins ambushed the motorcade of Lebanese Foreign and Defense Minister Fuad Butros, killing at least two of his bodyguards. Butros dived under his car and was not hurt. Witnesses said four other Butros bodyguards and one bystander were wounded in the shootout. Beirut Radio said the attackers were members of the "Lebanese Army Revolutionary Movement." [Chicago Tribune]
- Rescue workers dug bodies from the smoldering ashes of a crossroads truck stop in Villahermosa, which was destroyed when a natural gas pipeline ruptured and sent a fireball flashing through a dozen small restaurants and taco stands. Fifty-two people were reported killed and 11 others were hospitalized with burns suffered in the fiery explosion late Wednesday night near this southern Mexican city. [Chicago Tribune]
- Fire severely damaged a liquefied gas plant in the heart of Iran's $22-billion-a-year oil industry, where army troops tried unsuccessfully to get wildcat strikers to halt a three-day work stoppage. The fire, in a plant 25 miles from the huge Aghajari oil fields, was put out after a four-hour struggle. Damage was estimated at $5.7 million. Iranian troops were sent to the strikebound oilfields Tuesday after reports that saboteurs might attack the installations. [Chicago Tribune]
- A judge investigating currency violations plunged South Africa into a political crisis by releasing documents linking high government officials to the alleged misappropriation of millions of dollars in public funds. About $12 million allegedly was provided out of a secret slush fund to finance The Citizen, a pro-government newspaper that started publication 18 months ago in Johannesburg. [Chicago Tribune]
- Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan Bakr opened a summit of all Arab states except Egypt with a surprise rejection of hard-line calls for Egypt's isolation. Bakr in the past has been one of the most radical of Arab rulers. He did reject the U.S.-sponsored Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, but his attack on Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was surprisingly mild. [Chicago Tribune]
- Rhodesian warplanes bombed a guerrilla position five miles west of the Zambian capital of Lusaka in the first cross-border strike into Zambia by Rhodesian forces since airborne troops raided a dozen camps of the Zimbabwe African People's Union on Oct. 1 and killed a reported 1,500 guerrillas. [Chicago Tribune]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 816.96 (-10.83, -1.31%)
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 1, 1978 | 827.79 | 96.85 | 50.45 |
| October 31, 1978 | 792.45 | 93.15 | 42.72 |
| October 30, 1978 | 811.85 | 95.06 | 59.48 |
| October 27, 1978 | 806.05 | 94.59 | 40.36 |
| October 26, 1978 | 821.12 | 96.03 | 31.99 |
| October 25, 1978 | 830.21 | 97.31 | 31.38 |
| October 24, 1978 | 832.55 | 97.49 | 28.88 |
| October 23, 1978 | 839.66 | 98.18 | 36.09 |
| October 20, 1978 | 838.01 | 97.95 | 43.67 |
| October 19, 1978 | 846.41 | 99.33 | 31.81 |