M&A market optimism is hard to come by these days, but we managed to eek a little out of Gerald Adolph, who heads the merger and restructuring group at Booz & Co. In this edition of Inside the Deal, he tells Suzanne Stevens that while new deal activity has slowed, he hasn't seen an inordinate number of his clients shelve deals already in the works. And he says strategic buyers with strong balance sheets are shopping for steeply discounted assets, particularly in industries where the stock of buyer and seller are moving in tandem. And while he doesn't expect new deal announcements to pick up through year-end, he is optimistic about deal activity, particularly among sellers, in early 2009.