Daily News from New York, New York • 90

32 Wail two-day selloff: $40B "People want to touch me, because everyone I touch I make rich." don 't think that I will ever make a serious mistake on the stock market for the rest of my "If my eye Is on the right things market has only one message: Follow the market rewards me. me." What makes stock whiz tick Retail issues finished mixed as many reported good sales gains for December. In the auto group, General Motors, off announced more plant closings. Ford held its quarterly dividend steady at 30 cents and shed Chrysler, which has shown some sales improvement recently, tacked on American Motors was unchanged at 4. OILS, FORMERLY MARKET leaders, declined as did other energy sector items.

Mobil, which had bullish things to say about its offshore Newfoundland drilling, lost 1. Exxon fell 2V4, Sohio 2 while Getty and Atlantic Richfield gave up more than a point apiece. Sedco faltered 4, Halliburton 3, Reading Bates 2, Hughes Tool 3 and Schlumberger 2. Occidental Pete eased to 31. Dismissed indictments helped Computer Sciences climb 2Y to 20.

Federal allegations of overcharging some natural gas customers cost Internorth 1 to 40. SCA Services lost 2Yt Jto 14 as N.Y. State suspended an operating permit for one of its units. Harsco had no reason for the lVa gain to 35. Gold shares softened as the metal's price dropped again.

The dollar improved sharply against other currencies. On the American Exchange, Solitron Devices lost 1V4 to 12 and Health-Chem ended down 1 at 23. Frequency Electronics sparked for ZVz to 42 while American Precision rose 1 to 14. By PETER KADZIS The scorekeepers tallying Wall Street's $40 billion stock selloff of the last two days are calling it Joe Granville's revenge. The uncannily accurate stock forecaster, who proclaims that he will win the Nobel Prize for Economics, is the son of a banker who lost all his money in the great stock market crash of '29.

His mother, an avid astrologist, came from a well-to-do family, but his father had to work his way up from an early job as a "runner" clerk on Wall Street only to get clobbered by his own enthusiasm for stocks. Granville, who is now 57 and a millionaire, says that he is driven to earn back the money his father lost, and the route he chose has a special, sweet irony. He sells stock market advice to some 13,000 followers who are called "GRANVILLE'S GROUPIES." And when he says buy, they do driving up the market one memorable April day last year by 31 points and when he says sell, as he did Tuesday night, down goes Dow Jones by 23.8 points. HUD stalls Portman's Times By GERALD M. CONNORS Stock prices yesterday continued the plunge begun Wednesday -when the "sell everything" flash from market seer Joe Granville pushed the list over the precipice in the heaviest trading" ever on the New York Stock Exchange as an enormous 93.6 million shares changed bands.

The Dow Jones industrials tumbled 15.19 to 965.70 after a couple of rally attempts faltered. The setback brought Stock price tables appear on Page 34. the two-session plummet to 38.99. Volume reached 56.1 million shares with losing issues topping winners 2 to 1. The two-stanza selling wave has wiped out nearly $40 billions in stock values, leaving the financial communi- ty limp.

The bloodletting is all the more startling since it follows closely a strong market which carried the DJ blue-chip index ahead some 100 points in three weeks. THEN ALONG CAME Joe to some a "messiah," to others a flamboyant egotist, but to all a definite major market force and his of the night signal to dump equities. Jack Baker, vice president at First Boston pointed to the lack of "institutional players in the trading today," adding that a little retail action "this morning brought in waves of selling." Bache's chief market watcher, Larry Wachtel, took a calm view of the proceedings. "It's not an extraordinary day after yesterday's tumult It's like you get hit by a car. You don't get up and run a mile the next day." Square hotel he didn't know whether Portman could hold his financing together until HUD awards the next batch of Urban Development Action Grants in March.

The news delighted the project's opponents, who object to Portman's plans to raze the Morosco, Bijou, and Helen Hayes and replace them with a new theater-within a hotel whose design they also criticize as monolithic and uninviting. Portman Properties developent director Glenn Isaacson said "we're scrambling" to hold on to the financing. Isaacson attributed the missed deadline to "a simple mistake" by Portman Properties and the federal Economic Development Administration, which was to guarantee a separate $27 million bank loan for the hotel. BUT HUD SOURCES said they were convinced that the gap in the financing was real and not inadvertant of the stock blocks, other possibilities to resolve the battle include a peaceful merger, or the takeover of one company by a third party, which then could profit on the sale of the other's stock block. In trading yesterday, Curtiss-Wright stock fell 37.5 cents to $41.25 a share and Kennecott stock dropped 50 cents a share to $26,125.

"In my opinion, it would be in the best interests of shareholders for. both companies to reach an effective compromise as soon as possible," said J.Clarence Morrison, analyst for Dean Witter Reynolds. And the Granville himself owns no stocks. The market debacle is making Granville even a bigger man than he was. The phones in his Holly Hill, offices were ringing off their hooks yesterday as five secretaries tried to handle hundreds of calls from around the world for the man who sparked one of the biggest panics in stock market history.

However, pro- WIT 11 xessionais on wan it, Street and at the fc. Securities and Ex- 1 sion are starting to ask whether one man should have such influence. Granville That hasn't stopped Granville from insisting in interviews with CBS, NBC, the Wall Street Journal and the Daily News that he is now convinced Dow will drop at least 100 points in the coming weeks with 90 of all issues losing value, though only a few days ago he was telling his customers', who pay a minimun of $250 a year, that the market was going "STRAIGHT UP." 0 8th Street. PROPOSED SITE OF PORTMAN r-1 nuiLL rr i i I nr 46th I Street HOTEL Street. 45th a-akttaiBV o- -44th.

43d Street 1 BOB JUFFRAS DAILY NEWS "Obviously, we are disappointed," said Koch, who predicted last month that the mammoth 50-story, hotel, first proposed in 1973 for Broadway between 45th and 46th "will change Times Square radically for the better." The city's Economic Development Commissioner, Kenneth Schuman, said 49 interest in the New Jersey areos-pacefirm. Still Kennecott, which will buy all shares tendered up to noon yesterday, has acquired a substantial holding of Curtiss-Wright, giving it leverage in talks to possibly swap those shares for the 14.3 interest that Curtiss-Wright owns in Kennecott. Neither Kennecott nor Curtiss-Wright yesterday would comment on any new peace talks, but one source familiar with the corporate battle said that discussions between the two sides were under way. IN ADDITION TO a tax-free swap 'r t. 1 MARKET INDEX Closing prices tor 18 compared with 17 closing prices DOW Jones 965.70 down 15.19 500 1000 II I II II II I I Low: 317 eHtgh: 1118 Am Ex 336.38 DOWN 2 71 500 High: 10,13 OTC 195.89 DOWN 1.46 3 i High: 1114 $572.50 DOWN 50 iTi i i iT Low: 317 High: 121 Krugerrand S589.C0UP7 0O ssoo 11000 I I I I I I I I I Low: 3717 High: 121 Silver ii i i i i i if Low: 327 4 High: 121 Highs ft.

lows srs for 1980 DOW JONES AVERAGES VOLUME 56,120,000 Low: 387 Gold I I I By RANDY SMITH The Carter administration, rejecting appeals from Mayor Koch and Atlanta developer John Portman, today put a three-month freeze on a key $21.5 million grant for the giant Times Square hotel proposed by Portman. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Moon Landrieu announced he had upheld a Dec. 19 staff recommendation against the grant because Portman did not file proof of his private financing for the controversial $261.5 million project until Dec. 22 four days past the federal deadline. Both Mayor Koch and Portman had asked Landrieu to reverse the staff decision.

Koch even tried to call the HUD chief twice from Egypt during his vacation, but he didn't get through. And Portman's try failed even though he flew to the Sugar Bowl New Year's Day on Air Force One with his friend and fellow Georgian Jimmy Carter. Say Kennecott, Curtiss holding truce talks Day's Year's year's DOWAVG. Close Changs High Low Industrials 965.70 1,004.69 759.13 Transport 363.24 7.95 425.68 233.69 Utilities 114.09 1.10 117.34 96.04 Stocks 369.27 6.03 388.87 271.73 NYSE Corp. 76.20 1.09 81.02 55.30 AMEX Index 336.38 2.71 370.75 215.69 OTC Corp.

195.89 1.48 208.15 124.09 By JAMES A. WHITE Amid indications of new talks that could break the seven-week stalemate, Kennecott Corp. yesterday called an early halt to its $4Q a share tender offer for shares of Curtiss-Wright Corp. The Kennecott offer for 4.1 million Curtiss-Wright shares, which had been due to expire at 5 p.m. today, had floundered after Curtiss-Wright this week launched a $46 counter offer for 1 million of its own shares to thwart Kennecott Even before the Curtiss-Wright offer began, Kennecott had attracted only about half its goal of a MOST ACTIVE STOCKS NEW YORK EXCHANGE SALES CLOSE CHANGE 634,800 1 Corp 67 -V 619,600 LTV Corp 181 519,300 Mobil Corp 77 -iv 486,600 Exxon Corp 76H -2 463,600 Mattel Inc 9 to 472,100 Boeing Corp 40 -1H 468,600 McDonald's 54 2 453,900 Texaco Inc 45'4 -1 439.800 Phillip Morris 46' 438,300 Genl Motors 46 AMERICAN EXCHANGE 364,000 Petre-Lewls 30 5V 334,500 Ranger OH 164 326,400 Houston OH 50 256.100 Wang Labs 37 156,700 Commodore kill 42.