NEW YORK CITY -- Investors were stunned today when the NASDAQ and Dow Jones industrial averages failed to show up for work on 9:00 am this morning. The shocking disappearance marks the first time a loose conglomeration of market indices has completely vanished without warning.
   
    The President moved to reassure investors at a speech in Washington. "Already a massive international manhunt is underway to find the indices on which we had come to so rely. And they will be recovered and brought back to their rightful place."
   
    The President's strong words did little to encourage stockholders. FBI investigators say that the chances of recovering lost or stolen items in tact are not good.
   
    "Usually the chances of recovering missing or stolen persons or items is very low, however we hope that with enough public awareness of the case our chances will be a little better," said an FBI spokesman. "We're cautiously optimistic."
   
    The loss illustrates just how little is known about market psychology. Most analysts can predict when markets will open in the morning and close in the afternoon with a degree of certainty but anything else about their behavior is totally unknown.
   
    Most market leaders say the markets were a gift from aliens.
   
    "When [stock markets] first arrived on this planet, they were only taken for granted," said a Tome Herkins, a Merrill Lynch banker. "Now we know we should have taken bolder steps to appease their appetite for destruction.
   
    Markets were thought to have disappeared briefly in 1978 but turned out only to have been glued to the ceiling by prankster commodities traders. For two weeks in 1914 markets turned green and listened only to Eddie Van Halen tapes, despite that the rocker was yet to be born.
   
    Harvard psychologist Amy Hastert says we should have spent more time bonding with equities markets.
   
    "We should have spent a little less time living through our stock markets and a little more time living with our stock markets. Markets shouldn't be used to live out our wildest fantasies, but should be allowed to grow and become their own selves," she said.
   
    While whatever analysis continues, the stock markets have made no signs of reappearing any time soon.