News stories from Monday March 24, 1980

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

The Shah of Iran arrived in Egypt from Panama on a chartered jet. The deposed ruler and his wife were greeted at Cairo's airport by President Sadat, who told reporters later that the Shah would stay in Egypt "permanently." He was flown to a military hospital. Iranian demonstrations were called by Islamic clerical groups to protest the journey of the deposed Shah from Panama to Egypt. [New York Times] A leading prelate was assassinated as he officiated at a mass in San Salvador. The victim, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador, was one of the most respected and outspoken Roman Catholic Church leaders in Latin America. He was slain by a sniper who apparently stood just inside the church door and fired a single shot. [New York Times] Sweeping consumer credit curbs were announced by Citibank, New York's largest bank and the nation's second largest. It said, among other things, that it would "severely limit" new commitments on home mortgage and cooperative apartment loans and that it would issue no new Master Card or Visa credit cards, even to its present depositors. [New York Times] A postponement in budget debate on the House floor until after the Easter recess was expected by Democratic leaders after signs appeared that the fragile, bipartisan coalition that had supported a balanced budget for the next fiscal year was beginning to unravel. The leaders sought ways to compensate for a possible loss of Republican support, including overtures to liberal Democrats who had protested cuts in social programs. [New York Times] A Social Security payroll tax rise, set for next year, is opposed by two senior tax writers in the Senate, who began a bipartisan drive to avert it. They proposed that the tax be frozen at the present rate of 6.13 percent and not be allowed to rise to 6.65 percent as mandated by Congress in 1977. They also recommended that the salary base subject to the tax be increased to $28,200 next year, rather than to $29,700 as scheduled. [New York Times] Military enlistments have increased, in a shift from last year, prompting Pentagon officials to predict that the armed forces will fill their recruitment quotas this year even though they are much larger than the 1979 quotas. The officials expressed concern over the lower quality of the recruits, but they cautiously suggested that a draft was not needed. [New York Times] An offshore drilling blast and fire killed two men, injured 29 and left four missing. Only six crewmen escaped injury as they scurried off the rig, which had been drilling a natural gas well 100 miles off the Texas coast. [New York Times] President Carter seeks victories Tuesday in the Democratic presidential primaries in New York and Connecticut, which were once strongly expected to back Senator Edward Kennedy. Mr. Carter has won 17 primaries and caucuses and lost only two so far. Ronald Reagan, with a 7-2 record, is expected to run strongly in the two Republican primaries. [New York Times] The end of the world's worst oil spill was announced by Mexican officials. They said that engineers had successfully completed a nine-month effort to cap a well that had spewed more than 3.1 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. [New York Times] Talks over the hostages in Bogota were resumed by negotiators for Colombia and the guerrillas who have been holding about 32 diplomats for 27 days. This sixth round of talks was cordial, but there was no indication that the captives would be freed. [New York Times] A general strike by West Bank Arabs was set in protest against the Israeli government's plan to establish two Jewish schools in Hebron. But there was an increasing likelihood that the cabinet's plan will be quashed in Israel's Parliament. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 765.44 (-19.71, -2.51%)
S&P Composite: 99.28 (-3.03, -2.96%)
Arms Index: 3.93

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	136	0.84
Declines	1,513	36.71
Unchanged	249	1.68
Total Volume		39.23

* 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*
March 21, 1980	785.15	102.31	32.22
March 20, 1980	789.08	103.12	32.58
March 19, 1980	800.94	104.31	36.52
March 18, 1980	801.62	104.10	47.34
March 17, 1980	788.65	102.26	37.01
March 14, 1980	811.69	105.43	35.18
March 13, 1980	809.56	105.62	33.00
March 12, 1980	819.54	106.92	37.99
March 11, 1980	826.45	107.76	41.42
March 10, 1980	818.94	106.51	43.54