captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning, welcome to today on a friday morning. i m matt lauer, live from the floor of the new york stock exchange where meredith, it is thankfully quiet right now. you got that right, matt. i m back in studio 1a. all of the major overseas markets down overnight following some of the most gut-wrenching hours in wall street history. matt? the drop was fast and it was astonishing, meredith. just after 2:30 eastern time, the dow went from being down about 400 points to 800 points. it would lose another 198 points so a total of almost 1,000 points, and it happened very, very quickly. there was a recovery at the end of the day. the markets eventually closed down 348 points. some are suggesting a lot of the anxiety was caused by what is called a fat finger trade. just to explain, this means a trader accidentally hit a b for billion as opposed to an m for million when recording a trade. is that possible? we ll find out mo