News stories from Friday January 11, 1980

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

A proposal presumably dealing with the hostages received by Secretary General Kurt Waldheim from Teheran delayed for 24 hours a Security Council vote in the United Nations on the economic sanctions against Iran sought by the United States. American officials said the proposal was of "doubtful dependability." United Nations sources said that Iran now offers to release the hostages providing two conditions are fulfilled: recognition by the United Nations of the "legitimacy" of Iran's demand for the extradition of the Shah, and the "legitimacy" of Iran's claim for assets allegedly stolen by the Shah and his family. [New York Times] No further steps against the Soviet Union beyond the political and economic measures already announced are planned by the United States, Sec-retary of State Cyrus Vance said. In a television interview he left open the possibility that the United States might withdraw from the Olympic Games in Moscow.Canada questions "the appropriateness" of holding the Olympic Games in Moscow next summer, Prime Minister Joe Clark said, and would take the lead in attemtpting to have them moved to another country. In the meantime, the Netherlands said it was withdrawing all direct financial support for Dutch athletes who have been preparing to participate in the games. [New York Times] The Soviet Union defended its military operations in Afghanistan in the General Assembly of the United Nations, and said that it had acted to repel "armed intervention from outside." It charged the United States and China with "fabrication and slander" in their statements censuring the Soviet Union. A final version of a resolution calling for the "immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of all foreign troops" in Afghanistan is expected to be voted on tomorrow.Hundreds of Afghans stormed a prison near Kabul when the Soviet-backed government refused to release all their relatives held as political prisoners. About 3,000 people had gathered, ready to receive prisoners they thought were being released. [New York Times] Unemployment stayed almost level in December. The rate, 5.9 percent, was almost unchanged from November's 5.8 percent and the same as the rate for December 1978, the Labor Department reported. Janet Norwood, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, said the rate had shown "remarkable stability" over the last 17 months, but some economists outside the government predicted that it would rise sharply this year. [New York Times] The first Japanese car-assembly plant in the United States will be built by the Honda Motor Car Company. Honda announced in Tokyo that the plant will be erected near Columbus, Ohio, where it has been making motorcycles. [New York Times] A wayward plane crashed off the Virginia coast, apparently killing Robert (Bo) Rein, the head football coach of Lousiana State University, and the pilot of the twin-engine Cessna. Federal aviation authorities said that the plane lost contact with air controllers and then flew on automatic pilot as high as 40,000 feet and about 1,000 miles in the wrong direction. [New York Times] A Social Security tax rollback next year was opposed by a national commission, which made a series of recommendations to keep the Social Security System from going bankrupt. In an interim report, the panel said that if economic conditions became worse than expected, the system's retirement trust fund could be so low in a few years that "prompt payment of benefits would be threatened." [New York Times] Ronald Reagan's Republican support in Iowa fell sharply in the last six weeks, while President Carter took a big lead over Senator Edward Kennedy, according to the results of the Des Moines Register's poll, released 10 days before the Iowa caucuses. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 858.53 (-0.43, -0.05%)
S&P Composite: 109.92 (+0.03, +0.03%)
Arms Index: 0.79

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	869	29.15
Declines	670	17.69
Unchanged	351	6.05
Total Volume		52.89

* 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 10, 1980	858.96	109.89	55.98
January 9, 1980	850.09	109.05	65.24
January 8, 1980	851.71	108.95	53.38
January 7, 1980	832.00	106.81	44.50
January 4, 1980	828.84	106.52	39.16
January 3, 1980	820.31	105.22	50.47
January 2, 1980	824.57	105.76	40.61
December 31, 1979	838.74	107.94	31.53
December 28, 1979	838.91	107.84	34.42
December 27, 1979	840.10	107.96	31.40