The Hall-Yoder Daily Assessment Index for Thursday, November 8, 2001:   -5

Monday       +1
Tuesday       -1
Wednesday -2
Thursday     -5


The pronounced slow down in trading and the release of the restatement of income figures, amounting as the numbers did,  to another heavy "foot falling,"  are substantive factors that are not mitigated by the fact that the Street stayed its raised boot from punting us across the junk bond  line and that the Dynagy merger talks apparently continue, while the Mordant news further darkens the perception of the inner sanctum of the commercial temple.  

 What does it mean that as our inexorable fall continues step by step,  the crows, those sable messengers that were flying up and down this very river at this very site when Rome fell, are showing increasingly positive signs?  Today, several couples danced with what could only be seen as playfulness on the upcurrents of warm air that abound in and around the buildings,  gamboling aviary dyads  in the bright sun above the scarlet leaves, their dance upon the wind currents clearly celebratory, even to our reluctant, jaded eyes, sickened with foul corruption.    ----cgy