schema:articleBody
| - Brazil's Sao Paulo exchange temporarily suspended trading Monday after stocks plunged more than 10 percent as global markets recoiled from the coronavirus epidemic and a deep plunge in oil prices. The Ibovespa index, which had fallen by 4 percent on Friday, dropped more than 8 percent in opening trades, sinking to 10.02 percent half an hour later at 1340 GMT. Trading was suspended for 30 minutes after the sudden plunge triggered automatic circuit breakers, and stocks stabilized at 9.81 percent after the resumption. Shares of state-controlled oil giant Petrobras lost more than 24 percent after global oil prices fell more than 30 percent, the biggest drop since the 1991 Gulf War. Domestic airline Gol dropped 10 percent. The real continued to lose ground against the dollar, trading at 4.80, compared to 4.60 on Friday. Meanwhile, Chile's peso was trading at an all-time low against the dollar, which was worth 842 pesos early Monday. Continuing the global trend, the Buenos Aires stock exchange opened down by more than 9.0 percent. Official figures released last week showed the Brazilian economy slowed in President Jair Bolsonaro's first year in office. Brazil's economy grew 1.1 percent in 2019, down from 1.3 percent in each of the previous two years, the national statistics institute, IBGE, reported. Growth for the fourth quarter came in at 0.5 percent. When Bolsonaro took office, analysts forecast economic growth of around 2.5 percent for the year. lg/jm-db/jm
|