NEW YORK, NY - After trending downward since mid-summer, crude miracle oil plummeted at market close Thursday, finishing at $4999.25 - the first time the miraculous commodity has fallen below $5000 per barrel since the Great Recession.

According to top market analysts, market manipulation may have contributed to the crash.

"Nobody expects a $15,000/barrel miraculous anointing oil market to last forever," a CNBC market commentator said Thursday. "But there have been rumors that investors like Benny Hinn and Joseph Prince are involved in possible manipulation, selling short massive amounts of miracle healing oil in order to, some say, snap up the commodity in large quantities after prices tank."

Stating they expect the commodity to recover sometime in the next six months, other top televangelists immediately took advantage of the crash, purchasing thousands of barrels at rock-bottom prices.

"I'll just tell people I said a prayer over it, and call it magic healing oil or something. Consumers eat that stuff up," Rod Parsley said as he helped yet another semi truck full of anointing oil back into his warehouse full of miraculous trinkets for resale, according to a source close to the prosperity preacher.

Market experts are still advising that investors buy into both the anointing oil and prayer shawl markets while prices remain low, predicting a recovery around the third quarter of 2017.