News stories from Monday December 5, 1977

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

Egypt broke diplomatic relations with five Arab nations that have been hostile to President Anwar Sadat's peace overtures to Israel. The diplomatic representatives of Syria, Iraq, Libya, Algeria and Southern Yemen were told to leave Egypt within 24 hours. These countries were said to have ordered their representatives in Cairo home immediately. [New York Times] The United Mine Workers strike is on. The union ordered out at just after midnight the 130,000 miners covered by an expired agreement with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association. The talks on a new contract were recessed until Thursday. The miners' strike was joined by an additional 50,000 U.M.W. members who had been working under various separate contracts and forced the layoff of thousands of railroad and other non-striking coal workers. [New York Times] Coal stockpiles have hastily been built up by steel companies and electric utilities in anticipation of a long coal miners' strike. The prime beneficiaries are the nation's railroads. Coal production totaled 16.2 million tons in the last three months, up 12 percent from the year-earlier level. The Association of American Railroads says that coal traffic increased 20 percent in the same period and that the cars were loaded at their fastest rate since 1948. [New York Times] Energy conferees agreed to go along with the Carter administration's crude oil equalization tax in weekend meetings with Senator Russell Long, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Mr. Long will no longer insist on steering some of the crude oil taxes to the oil industry, conference sources said. In exchange, Energy Secretary James Schlesinger was said to have promised to take a series of administrative steps to raise the producers' price of domestic oil. [New York Times] A drop in car sales of 4.7 percent in the final selling period of November below a year ago was reported by the Detroit auto companies. It was the second consecutive week in which sales slumped instead of spurting as they usually do at this time of the year. Auto executives seemed undisturbed, but investment analysts said that the industry's prospects might not be so bright as they seemed when the 1978 models were introduced. [New York Times] Stocks of companies involved in corporate mergers advanced, but the market generally weakened. Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by an 8 to 5 ratio. The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 2.95 points to 821.03. Transportation and utility stocks posted small losses. The market's performance was affected by the usual year-end selling of stocks to raise cash for taxes. [New York Times] Federal aid to cities will be greatly reduced from what was proposed by the President's urban policy group, according to White House sources. They said that no more than $2 billion or $3 billion would be available for urban aid in next year's budget, possibly much less. The urban policy group was hoping for $8 billion to $10 billion. The disappointment of urban leaders marked the opening session of the Congress of Cities in San Francisco. [New York Times] New York City faces further budget cutbacks and tough negotiations with Congress to get an extension of the special federal loan assistance program that it says it needs beyond the June 30, 1978, cutoff date, according to some congressional and administration leaders. If Congress, the officials said, does extend the so-called seasonal loan program, it is expected to insist on a complete phase-out of such help within three or four years. [New York Times] "High treason" was the way hard-line Arab leaders described Egypt's peace initiatives with Israel and they announced a "front for resistance and confrontation." The front was established by Syria, Libya, Algeria, Southern Yemen and the Palestine Liberation Organization. But apparently at Syria's insistence they did not declare themselves as opposed to a negotiated Middle East peace settlement, and they also appeared to leave the door open to eventual reconciliation with Egypt. [New York Times] Secretary Vance will urge other Arabs to follow the lead of President Sadat of Egypt in starting direct negotiations with Israel for an overall peace agreement when he visits the Middle East. Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia have agreed to receive him but the State Department said it had not heard from Syria, regarded in Washington as a crucial stop. [New York Times] David Bruce, who represented the United Stales in a wide variety of diplomatic assignments, died at Georgetown Medical Center in Washington. He was 79 years old. He retired in 1976 after 16 months as chief United States delegate to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 821.03 (-2.95, -0.36%)
S&P Composite: 94.27 (-0.40, -0.42%)
Arms Index: 1.21

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	591	5.92
Declines	854	10.36
Unchanged	465	2.88
Total Volume		19.16

* 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*
December 2, 1977	823.98	94.67	21.16
December 1, 1977	825.71	94.69	24.22
November 30, 1977	829.70	94.83	22.67
November 29, 1977	827.27	94.55	22.95
November 28, 1977	839.57	96.04	21.57
November 25, 1977	844.42	96.69	17.91
November 23, 1977	843.30	96.49	29.15
November 22, 1977	842.52	96.09	28.30
November 21, 1977	836.11	95.25	20.11
November 18, 1977	835.76	95.33	23.93