News stories from Monday February 2, 1976

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

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the United States representative at the United Nations, resigned today. He told President Ford in a letter that he had been forced by circumstances to choose, "with a heavy and still divided heart," between continuing in government service or returning to the faculty of Harvard University. There was no indication in the letter that he might seriously be considering a candidacy for the Democratic nomination as Senator from New York. [New York Times] The active presidential candidates may not have to observe campaign spending limits, which the Supreme Court said last week they must, if Congress does not revive the Federal Election Commission. Members of the commission met to discuss the Court's ruling, and they agreed that the candidates' federal subsidies would be cut off if Congress allowed the commission, which the Court also said must be reorganized, to close down without creating a substitute agency. Legislation that would restore the commission's constitutional authority was introduced in both houses of Congress, but there was little hope that it would be approved in the 30-day grace period set by the Court. [New York Times] The mood of reform generated by the Watergate scandals has brought about scores of new laws that are forcing one million state and local officials to give the public its first glimpse of probably their most guarded secrets -- their financial affairs -- and they do not like it. [New York Times] James E. Smith, Comptroller of the Currency, has acknowledged that his office has not sought to pursue the kind of activist regulatory policy toward the nation's banks that he now feels it should. The acknowledgment was made in an interview while public attention and congressional concern are being directed at the Comptroller's office, as well as other bank regulatory agencies. He said that the Comptroller's office had not "taken banks on" in terms of attempting to influence their major policies, such as lending to real estate investment trusts, He said this had not been done "because we may have felt it wasn't our business." [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 971.35 (-3.93, -0.40%)
S&P Composite: 100.87 (+0.01, +0.01%)
Arms Index: 0.85

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	863	12.46
Declines	655	8.04
Unchanged	395	3.50
Total Volume		24.00

* 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 30, 1976	975.28	100.86	38.51
January 29, 1976	968.75	100.11	29.80
January 28, 1976	951.35	98.53	27.37
January 27, 1976	957.81	99.07	32.07
January 26, 1976	961.51	99.68	39.64
January 23, 1976	953.95	99.21	33.64
January 22, 1976	943.48	98.04	27.42
January 21, 1976	946.24	98.24	34.47
January 20, 1976	949.86	98.86	36.69
January 19, 1976	943.72	98.32	29.45