News stories from Friday January 16, 1981

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

Terms of a final agreement with Iran were drafted by the United States, and officials said if it was accepted the release of American hostages could come as early as Sunday. Iran said it presented "no obstacle" to concluding an agreement permitting the release of the hostages. Executive Affairs Minister Behzad Nabavi no longer demanded, as he did Thursday, that the United States start transferring frozen Iranian assets to Algeria by the "end of working hours" today. "Only the real willingness of Washington can bring decisive results today," he said. [New York Times] The return of frozen Iranian assets in the United States, a key part of a hostage release agreement, set off a day of frenzied international banking activity. President Carter ordered an exchange of more than $900 million in gold with Britain so that the United States would have gold in the Bank of England for ultimate transfer to Iran. He also ordered liquidation of Iranian-owned Treasury securities in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for an ultimate electronic transfer.American and British experts in law and finance went to Algeria to tackle the remaining problems in the hostage release agreement, which was believed blocked only by new technical complications arising from an Iranian proposal. Five American and three British experts went to Algiers. [New York Times] "Serious national problems" were outlined by President Carter in a final State of the Union Message to Congress. Among the most pressing were unemployment and inflation rates that are "unacceptably high" and an increasingly tight world oil market. Mr. Carter also drew attention to what he described as a continuing Soviet threat to Poland. [New York Times] President Carter said he disagreed with a presidential commission's recommendation that the government encourage a migration from Northern industrial cities to the South and West. He expressed his views after accepting a final copy of the report of the President's Commission for a National Agenda for the 80's, which he appointed in 1979. [New York Times] The informer who delayed a vote on the confirmation in the Senate of Raymond Donovan, Secretary of Labor-designate in the Reagan administration, was identified by law enforcement sources in New Jersey and Washington as Ralph Picardo. He reportedly told investigators for the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee that, to buy labor peace from a Teamsters local, Mr. Donovan made payments to him in 1967 and 1968 on behalf of the Schiavone Construction Company of Secaucus, N.J. [New York Times] Seven anti-Castro Cuban exiles were arrested In the Florida Keys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced, and explosive devices and other weapons that apparently were to be used in training for an expedition to Cuba were seized. Six of the Cubans reportedly had come to the United States in the boatlift last year. [New York Times] A Stouffer's Inn waiter Is suspected of setting the fire at the hotel in Harrison, N.Y., that killed 26 people on Dec. 4, The waiter, whose name was not disclosed and who denied the charges, had reportedly been told that he was going to be dismissed that day. [New York Times] A major anti-trust trial was halted the day after it started. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company was the defendant. A federal judge ended the trial when the Justice Department and A.T.& T. said they had reached a "tangible, concrete agreement" to settle the case. The Justice Department charged A.T.& T, which owns the Bell system, with monopolizing the telephone service and equipment industry. [New York Times] Warsaw's bus and trolley drivers struck for four hours to support demands for a five-day work week. The strikers were challenging a government order that would dock the salaries of industrial workers who stayed away from their jobs last Saturday as part of the campaign for the shorter work week. [New York Times] Northern Irish Protestant terrorists were believed responsible for an attack on Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband at their home 30 miles from Belfast. Both were wounded several times and were said to be in serious condition. Three suspects were arrested. Mrs. McAliskey, an Irish republican leader and a former member of the British Parliament, strongly supported the prisoners who recently held a hunger strike in a bid for political-prisoner status. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 973.29 (+3.32, +0.34%)
S&P Composite: 134.77 (+0.55, +0.41%)
Arms Index: 0.85

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	880	23.23
Declines	642	14.42
Unchanged	379	5.61
Total Volume		43.26

* 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 15, 1981	969.97	134.22	39.63
January 14, 1981	966.47	133.47	41.39
January 13, 1981	965.10	133.29	40.89
January 12, 1981	968.77	133.52	48.75
January 9, 1981	968.69	133.48	50.18
January 8, 1981	965.70	133.06	55.35
January 7, 1981	980.89	135.08	92.88
January 6, 1981	1004.69	138.12	67.40
January 5, 1981	992.66	137.97	58.71
January 2, 1981	972.78	136.34	28.86