News stories from Thursday February 2, 1978

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

The United Mine Workers and the coal producers were said to be near agreement on a new three-year contract that could end the nine-week strike of 160,000 miners. The two sides have been negotiating intermittently for four months. The agreement would require the approval of the union's 24-man bargaining council, which is not regarded as a certainty, and a vote of the miners in a ratification referendum is also uncertain. [New York Times] The C.I.A. and the State Department are interpreting an order from President Carter differently. The order gave United States ambassadors detailed authority to supervise "all United States government officers and employees" in the countries to which they are assigned, including C.I.A. covert operations. However the C.I.A. has sent out directives exempting some people. Officials of the State Department and the C.I.A. confirmed the disparity between the presidential order, issued last fall, and the guidelines subsequently issued by the C.I.A. to its station chiefs in foreign posts. [New York Times] Offshore oil and gas reserves would be developed under tighter federal regulations under a bill passed by the House, 291 to 91. The bill was considerably weakened in debate under pressure from Republican and oil-state Democrats who said that the production of domestic energy supplies would be drastically slowed by the original proposal. Liberal backers of the bill agreed to the changes, partly in the hope that some of the cuts would be restored in conference with the Senate, which passed a much stronger version. [New York Times] The Chicago Daily News is expected to announce today that it will fold. Marshall Field, publisher of the 102-year-old paper, the city's only remaining afternoon daily, could not be reached for comment, but Mike Royko, a columnist and associate editor, said that as far as he knew "we're closing up." He said the announcement was expected to come after a board meeting. [New York Times] President Carter told Mayor Koch that the administration would support further financial help for New York City when he was certain that "all the local parties with an interest in the city's future" were also making the "maximum effort." The mayor and other city officials had a half-hour meeting at the White House with Mr. Carter, who emphasized the importance of winning pledges from New York state, pension funds, labor unions and the city's financial community to support the city. Mr. Carter also ordered Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal to go to New York next week for further talks with city officials. [New York Times] Stock prices rose on reports of corporate takeover negotiations, a comparatively steady dollar in foreign exchange trading and pronounced strength in some railroad, oil and specialty stocks. The gains that the Dow Jones industrial average had made during the session, however, gradually diminished and the average closed with an advance of only 1.04 points to 775.38. It had gained four points Wednesday. [New York Times] Bets are taken in London on which way Wall Street's Dow Jones industrial average will move. Call London, 493-5261, and ask for Christopher Hales of Coral Index Ltd. Mr. Hales, 38, is a former stock market and commodities operator. Speculation on the Dow average works on buying or selling "lumps" of the Dow industrials, made up of 30 leading issues on the New York Stock Exchange. The minimum is two 1-pound units at $3.30, and the maximum is 1,000 units at $1,950. [New York Times] The United States military budgets must increase by nearly $56 billion over the next five years to keep up with the Soviet Union's military outlays, Defense Secretary Harold Brown said in presenting his annual defense report to the House Armed Services Committee. He expressed concern about increasing Soviet nuclear strength and the "increasingly precarious" balance between Atlantic alliance and the Warsaw Pact forces. He said there was now a "standoff or stalemate" in the strategic nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Pentagon is planning a sustained growth in the defense budget from $116.8 billion this year to $172.7 billion in 1983. [New York Times] Leaders of major American Jewish organizations said they have declined to "seek an invitation" to meet with President Anwar Sadat during his visit to the United States. The phrase to "seek an invitation" was used by Rabbi Alexander Schindler, chairman of the Conference of President of Major American Jewish Organizations, in a statement that said that the leaders had declined unanimously "lest our community be interpreted as seeking to take part in the negotiations and lest such a meeting be construed as a surrogate for direct Egyptian-Israeli talks." The group had been informed early this week that Mr. Sadat had wished to meet with them. Some prominent Jews will meet the Egyptian leader. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 775.38 (+1.04, +0.13%)
S&P Composite: 90.13 (+0.20, +0.22%)
Arms Index: 1.24

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	899	11.63
Declines	498	8.00
Unchanged	439	3.41
Total Volume		23.04

* 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*
February 1, 1978	774.34	89.93	22.24
January 31, 1978	769.92	89.25	19.87
January 30, 1978	772.44	89.34	17.40
January 27, 1978	764.12	88.58	17.60
January 26, 1978	763.34	88.58	19.60
January 25, 1978	772.44	89.39	18.69
January 24, 1978	771.57	89.25	18.69
January 23, 1978	770.70	89.24	19.38
January 20, 1978	776.94	89.89	7.58
January 19, 1978	778.67	90.09	21.50