Financial markets opened this morning to massive sell-off after an unnamed Florida investor released a surplus of Qur’ans onto the global marketplace, sending the price of holy books everywhere crashing. In scenes reminiscent of the collapse of Lehman Brothers two years ago, panic spread rapidly across trading desks in London and New York. “This could be bigger than Greece”, remarked one febrile trader.
The market-moving event began last night when a Florida broker placed a sell order for “thousands” of copies of the holy book on behalf of an unnamed local investor. “My client had been buying up Qur’ans for months now - God only knows why - and literally burning his way through his life savings”, said the broker. “Now he's left with all these copies and no idea what to do with them. It was a classic asset price bubble.”
There was turmoil in the City, where bankers had been using holy books as collateral for short-term loans. As contagion spread and rumours circulated that offshore hedge funds were also short-selling the Bible and the Torah, religious text traders began to pile up losses. Financial analysts speculate that Barclays, which had led the City in the growth of holy book trading operations, will be forced to make billions of pounds worth of write-downs. “Vince Cable is going to absolutely crucify us for this one”, new CEO ‘Diamond’ Bob Diamond was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, bankers at Goldman Sachs were in a more optimistic mood. “We hedged our holy book exposures by buying up pornography, heavy metal CDs and copies of Richard Dawkins’ latest diatribe”, explained one relieved-looking risk manager.