Obama Briefed On Greece And Market Turbulence

President Barack Obama was briefed on the market turbulence and debt situation in Greece today by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers. The Obama administration said it supports efforts to provide emergency loans to Greece. Separately, U.S. regulators announced an investigation into unusual trading activity during today's volatile action on Wall Street.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said "Greece is enacting major economic reforms with the support of the euro-area and the IMF". He added, "We strongly support this effort to help resotre stability to Greece and confidence to the global financial system and we will continue to communicate this to European officials."

A Treasury Department official said Geithner would discuss developments in Greece with other finance ministers from the Group of Seven major industrial countries during a conference call Friday morning. The G-7 member include the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Britain, Japan and Italy.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission said they are working with other financial regulators and the stock exchanges to "review the unusual trading activity that took place this afternoon."

Today's trading action saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop more than 1,000 points in less than 30 minutes before recovering for a loss of 347 points.