January 9, 1981

International A qualified pledge to honor any accord made by President Carter with Iran to free the American hostages was given by Ronald Reagan, but he said he reserved the right to make new proposals if the crisis has not been resolved when he becomes President on Jan. 20. Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher conferred in Algiers with the Algerian Foreign Minister on questions raised by the Algerian intermediaries over Washington's proposals to Iran. (Page A1, Col. 6.) Efforts to resolve the hostage crisis have been complicated by legal questions over the extent of President Carter's authority to meet Iran's demands. American lawyers representing Iranian interests have quietly been helping Teheran's leaders evaluate the apparent legal obstacles. But differences of opinion may have increased Iran's skepticism about the the extent of Mr. Carter's authority. (A8:1.)

Administrators of the New York State and city court system said yesterday that they would make more judges available to try cases against people accused of serious crimes in New York City. The plan would increase by 14 judges the 125 who are now handling felony cases in the criminal parts of State Supreme Court, through the reassignment of Civil Court judges and senior Criminal Court judges. The reassigned judges would be replaced through new appointments to be made by Mayor Koch and the temporary assignment of upstate judges to Civil Courts. The state's chief administrative judge, Herbert B. Evans, and Judge E. Leo Milonas, his deputy in charge of city courts, said the plan would expand to criminal cases a year-old program under which upstate judges had been used to clear up a backlog of civil cases.

In mythical times, seers lived on craggy mountaintops and foretold the victories and deaths of kings and queens. Today they live in Florida and California and predict the highs and lows of the stock market. Joseph Granville, the Holly Hill, Fla., forecaster whose Tuesday night warning touched off a 23.8-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average on Wednesday, is one of the best known and most flamboyant of this breed of clairvoyants. But there are thousands of others who also ply the trade, some well known, some more obscure, but all certain that they can guide the bewildered investor. ''From time immemorial, people have sought certainty in an uncertain world,'' said William Freund, chief economist at the New York Stock Exchange. ''It goes back to reading entrails and crystal balls. Life is too difficult if you have to cope with uncertainties, and it becomes almost unbearable in the case of the stock market.''

If Walter A. Forbes is right, the future of American retailing is taking shape on the fourth floor of a nondescript office building in downtown Stamford. There, at the hub of an electronic shopping service offered by Comp-U-Card of America Inc., teams of people man telephones and scan price lists on computer terminals in a system that enables 1.5 million members to shop from home by toll-free telephone. ''We've put all our efforts into being the No. 1 electronic shopping service for the 1980's, the 1990's and thereafter,'' said Mr. Forbes, the chief executive. In addition to the 1.5 million members who shop by phone, some 5,000 other home-computer owners with access to the company's Comp-U-Star system have been able to shop with their computer for the past 18 months. An expansion of Comp-U-Star and a cable television shopping service are scheduled for the next few months.

The Carter Administration plans to propose a budget for the fiscal year 1982 with a deficit of about $30 billion, substantially less than was expected just a few weeks ago, Administration officials said today. The deficit for the fiscal year 1981, which began last Oct. 1, is now projected at about $57 billion, which is $27 billion more than the last official estimate, in July, but less than some analysts had feared. Even though Mr. Carter will be leaving office Jan. 20, his budget figures are important because they demonstrate the challenge facing President-elect Ronald Reagan, who recently moved his target date for balancing the budget from 1983 to 1984. Although Mr. Reagan is drafting his own 1982 budget, he will be working from the estimates of spending and revenues prepared by the Office of Management and Budget for Mr. Carter.