7 Day Woooops!

Wall Street capped its worst week ever with a wild session Friday that saw the Dow Jones industrials rocket within a 1,000 point range before closing with a relatively mild loss and the Nasdaq composite index actually end with a modest advance. Investors were still agonizing over frozen credit markets, but seven days of massive losses made many stocks tempting for traders looking for bargains.

Wow a whole week coming now of sunny weather!

Where is FDR when you need him, I ask?

Woops still again....

Stocks plunged in the final hour of trading Thursday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 675 points, or more than 7 percent, to its lowest level in five years after a major credit ratings agency said it was considering cutting its rating on General Motors Corp.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index also fell more than 7 percent.

The declines came on the anniversary of the closing highs of the Dow and the S&P. The Dow has lost 5,585 points, or 39 percent, since closing at 14,198 a year ago. The S&P 500, meanwhile, is off 655 points, or 42 percent, since recording its high of 1,565.15.

Woops again...

Wall Street bounced higher and lower Wednesday trying to make up its mind about an unprecedented coordinated interest rate cut by central banks around the world. In the end it settled on a familiar feeling — fear — and plunged again.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem: Autumn (earlier poem)

Autumn (earlier poem)

With what a glory comes and goes the year!
The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers
Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out;
And when the silver habit of the clouds
Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with
A sober gladness the old year takes up
His bright inheritance of golden fruits,
A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene.

There is a beautiful spirit breathing now
Its mellow richness on the clustered trees,
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,
And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds.
Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird,
Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life
Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned,
And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved,
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the wayside a-weary. Through the trees
The golden robin moves. The purple finch,
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,
A winter bird, comes with its plaintive whistle,
And pecks by the witch-hazel, whilst aloud
From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings,
And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke,
Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail.

O what a glory doth this world put on
For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well performed, and days well spent!
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves,
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings.
He shall so hear the solemn hymn that Death
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go
To his long resting-place without a tear.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Autumn arrives, array'd in splendid mein

Autumn arrives, array'd in splendid mein;
Vines, cluster'd full, add to the beauteous scene,
And fruit-trees cloth'd profusely laden, nod,
Complaint bowing to the fertile sod.

-Farmer's Almanac, 1818