water, 61-year-old diana nyad abandons her attempt to be the first person to swim from cuba to florida. we ll tell you why on this to florida. we ll tell you why on this tuesday, august 9th, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to today on this tuesday morning. i m ann curry. matt lauer is on the floor of the new york stock exchange this morning. matt, good morning. it s pretty quiet around here right now. it was anything but quiet on monday. to give you an idea of how alarming the dow 635 or nearly 635 type decline was? it was the sixth worst single day point decline in the last 11 years, if that puts it into context for you. despite the turmoil, the s&p president is defending the company s decision to downgrade the u.s. credit rating. now some analysts are saying that decision in the long run could actually end up being a good thing for the overall economy. we re going to talk about all of this with cnbc s maria bartiromo and jim cramer. a
person to swim from cuba to florida. we ll fell you why today, tuesday, august 9th, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television welcome to today. i m ann curry. up matt lauer. the dow is up about 150 points. that s a pretty positive sign a day after dropping nearly 635. that s right. that decline was the sixth worst single-day point decline in the last 112 years. but despite the turmoil, the s&p president is defending his company s decision to downgrade the u.s. credit rating and, in fact, some analysts believe that decision could end up being a good thing for the economy in the long run. so we re going to talk about all that this morning with cnbc s maria bartiromo and jim cramer. also ahead, take a look at this newsweek cover featuring michele bachmann. the caption is queen of rage, but an unflattering photo that has a lot of people crying foul. we ll talk more about that, as well. also, should a man be able to use social media to say bad things about h
brave unpredictable weather, currents and, yes, shark-infested waters. today, monday, august 8th, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning. welcome to today on a monday morning. it s about 7:00 on the west coast. i m matt lauer. i m ann curry. good morning. investors are weighing in on the downgrade. they re not happy. no, they re not. the dow down about 200 points following a weekend of finger-pointing in washington over the cause of that downgrade. president obama s treasury secretary, tim geithner, lashed out saying standard & poor s showed terrible judgment and a stunning lack of knowledge. straight ahead, the latest on what s happening on wall street with cnbc s jim cramer and maria bartiromo. also ahead this morning, the sci joins the manhunt for two young brothers and their sister. the trio is accused of shooting at lis police during a high-speed chase in florida and brazenly robbing a bank in georgia. the ominous message wasn t sent t
the financial rating of the united states by standard and pours. the president spoke this afternoon. it did nothing to calm the markets. in fact, they fell during his remarks. watching this, along with us, from cnbc global headquarters, sue herrera. sue, for the viewers joining us across the country in the middle of the afternoon, what is happening here? basically, investors on wall street have lost confidence in washington, and in the way that business is done in washington and also in the aftermath of standard & poor s, saying that the u.s., in their opinion, is let credit worthy, investors are not taking any chances on holding corporate paper. in other words, stocks of corporations in the united states, that they consider less than credit worthy. when standard & poor s made its move, it had kind of a cascading effect, brian. and as a result of that, we came into wall street s monday trading day under an awful lot of pressure. traders are worried about the debt in the uni
of u.s. credit. and there s growing pressure on the president to do something to shore up confidence in the nation s financial future. karen travers is joining us from washington with the latest. good morning, karen. reporter: good morning, tanya. good morning, daniel. when the stock market opens this morning, we ll get a feel of how investors feel about the downgrade. u.s. futures are pointing to losses, after a fluctuating day in the asian markets. all eyes are on wall street today. and if the asian markets are an indicator of what s to come, we may be in for a wild ride. markets in japan, hong kong and south korea, all dropped sharply today. i think the reaction in asia has been much better than expected. i think it s been muted. reporter: across the globe, investors are concerned. not just because of the u.s. credit downgrade, but the general economic slowdown in the u.s. and across europe. scared them. the world ssot too much debt. reporter: here in the u.s.,