News stories from Monday February 28, 1977

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

Severe cold weather this winter was held responsible last month for a decline in the Commerce Department's composite economic index and the nation's biggest foreign trade deficit on record. The index of trends in production, finance and employment declined 1.2 percent, the first time since September. The record $1.67 billion trade deficit reflected soaring oil imports and a decline in export shipping because of frozen waterways. [New York Times] Slightly higher food costs may follow a 2 percent price rise farmers got for their products in the month ended Feb. 15. The farmers had their third consecutive month of recovery, bringing the index of farm prices where it was a year ago, the Agriculture Department said. [New York Times] Stock prices advanced slightly, but trading still was the slowest in three months. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 2.99 points to 936.42. New York City's Municipal Assistance Bonds declined sharply, as much as 2½ points, as the city's financial difficulties worsened. Underwriters, meanwhile, prepared to bid in tomorrow's $96 billion bond sale by New York state. It appeared that only one bid would be submitted. The bonds were still unrated by Moody's late this afternoon. [New York Times] A Uganda radio broadcast monitored in London quoted President Idi Amin as saying that Americans in Uganda were free to go anywhere, inside or outside the country, according to Reuters. The White House disclosed earlier that President Carter had expressed thanks to President Amin for his assurances. [New York Times] An electronic listening device was secretly placed in the home of one of West Germany's prominent nuclear physicists with the authorization of the Minister of the Interior, who has charged that the scientist, Dr. Klaus Traube, had frequent contacts with an internationally sought terrorist. [New York Times] The government will sue Maine to recover land for the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indian tribes if an out-of-court settlement of a suit brought by the tribes is not settled by June 1. "We have no choice but to proceed," the Justice Department said in papers filed in Federal District Court in Portland, Me. Government lawyers believe that the Indians have a valid claim to five million acres of forest land in northern Maine. [New York Times] The Grumman Corporation is being sued for $114.6 million in compensatory and punitive damages by a former sales agent and his wife on the ground that close associates of President Kennedy had intimidated him into selling his contract under which he sold Grumman's F-14's to Iran. The two associates of the late president named in the complaint were Kenneth O'Donnell, Mr. Kennedy's appointments secretary, and Benjamin Smith, who filled the last two years of Mr. Kennedy's Senate term. Both men denied the allegations. The plaintiffs are Houshang and Annette Lavi. [New York Times] Thousands of merchants will lose money when a new Oregon law that prohibits the sale of aerosols containing chlorofluorocarbons, which are believed to damage the earth's protective ozone area, becomes effective tomorrow, two years after it was passed by the state legislature. [New York Times] The Carter administration would support passage of a law that would bar American companies from taking part in the Arab economic boycott of Israel, reversing a stand taken by the Ford administration. The shift in policy was made known by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who told a Senate Banking subcommittee that the administration did not favor either of two pending anti-boycott bills and that it would prefer drafting of new legislation. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 936.42 (+2.99, +0.32%)
S&P Composite: 99.82 (+0.34, +0.34%)
Arms Index: 0.83

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	709	7.01
Declines	694	5.67
Unchanged	472	3.54
Total Volume		16.22

* 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 25, 1977	933.43	99.48	17.61
February 24, 1977	932.60	99.60	19.73
February 23, 1977	938.25	100.19	18.24
February 22, 1977	939.91	100.49	17.73
February 18, 1977	940.24	100.49	18.04
February 17, 1977	943.73	100.92	19.04
February 16, 1977	948.30	101.50	23.43
February 15, 1977	944.32	101.04	21.62
February 14, 1977	938.33	100.74	19.23
February 11, 1977	931.52	100.22	20.51