Dow Jones drops 500 points on news of little Timmy Johnson’s grounding

The parents of little Timmy Johnson, 8, thought he knew better. But they had caught him, red-handed as it were, when he came out of his bedroom crying due to burning his fingers while playing with matches.

Though kind-hearted people, Bob and Sandy Johnson of Seattle had dedicated themselves to being strict with their child when situations such as these occurred. So when little Timmy stopped crying and pulled himself together, his parents told him he’d have to spend the weekend with no television or video games. He had been bad, they told him, and he was being grounded.

Wall Street reacted immediately to the news as stocks fell across the board. Overall, the Dow Jones lost more than 500 points as the news of tension in the Middle East and little Timmy Johnson’s grounding led to a groundswell of sellers.

“There’s still a lot of confusion as to where the current battle with Iran will take the market,” said Dennis Hagerfield, a trader originally from Des Moines, Iowa. “And this situation with little Timmy Johnson just pushed everything right over the edge. He deserved much more fair treatment.”

Despite the drop in the stock market, Sandy Johnson said she has no regrets over the grounding of her precocious son.

“I won’t have the stock market tell me how to raise my child,” said Sandy Johnson. “Timmy’s a good boy, but his curiosity can get the best of him.”

Disney was the biggest loser on the day, seeing its stock shares drop 2.3 percent on the day to close at $198,7243.32 per share. An official for Disney said the grounding of Timmy Johnson was an obvious problem.

“When children like little Timmy Johnson are removed from the Disney media blitz for even a weekend, problems arise,” said Myron Taylor, head of the Disney Media Blitz Department. “We believe we will cut this problem off, however, with the release of our informative and helpful straight-to-video release titled ‘The Pickle People Save Little Timmy Johnson.’ ”

Mainly, however, most experts pointed to the little Timmy Johnson Grounding episode as just another sign of how volatile the market is these days.

“Fuck, the market is really volatile,” said Dr. Gordon T. Mack of the Harvard School of Business.

Investors will be looking at little Timmy Johnson’s situation throughout the week. As of Wednesday afternoon, PST, the grounding was still in effect. Experts believe that if the grounding is at least cut in half the market will respond with one of its best days of the year.

–WKW

Crossposted at Shakesville

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