A morning rally on Wall Street appeared to gain momentum after a 5.9 magnitude earthquake centered outside Washington shook buildings and frayed nerves up and down the Northeast Corridor. At 2:45 PM Eastern time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 209 points, as jubilant investors ‘welcomed the news as sending a strong message to legislators in spite of their being out of town on summer recess’. As one veteran trader put it, “Had Congress actually been in session, I think you’d have seen the Dow up about 1200.”
A spokesman for Harold Camping told reporters that the noted doomsday prognosticator, “will issue a statement as soon as he’s had time to check his math.”
Pat Robertson, the renowned TV evangelist, amateur seismologist, and recent Bingo Caller Hall Of Fame inductee issued a statement calling the temblor “a clear sign from God that He is not pleased with happenings in our nation’s capital.” Robertson also expressed a degree of surprise that there had not yet been any reports of damage in Martha’s Vineyard.
Standard & Poor’s President Deven Sharma welcomed Robertson’s comments, and went so far as to suggest that, “If those members of Congress most willing to heed Mr. Robertson’s warnings actually change their tune – as well as their tone – in tackling fiscal policy matters, it would seem likely that an environment would be created which would allow S&P to reinstate the United States’ AAA credit rating — and hopefully get the Justice Department off of our backs.”
While the quake was not felt on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the rumbling did cause the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to postpone a scheduled press conference regarding the dismissal of sexual assault charges against disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. When reached by reporters for comment, Strauss-Kahn told reporters, “At the time of the quake, I was in my Tribeca townhouse celebrating my good fortune with a female friend. Fortunately, I was able to convince her – as I had first believed – that it was I who was responsible for what we had both just experienced.”